Bees (II)

There is a bee cemetery
there in my land, in Patagonia,
and they come back laden with their honey
to die of so much sweetness.

It is a stormy region
curved like car springs
with an everlasting rainbow
like a pheasant's tail:
waterfalls roar on the rivers,
scud leaps like hares,
wind snaps and dilates
in the surrounding solitude:
a circle is the meadowland
with a mouth full of snow
and belly of red.

There they come one by one,
a million next another million,
all bees to die
until the land is full
of big yellow mountains.

I cannot forget their fragrance.

 

 Pablo Neruda