Bees (I)

What am I going to do, I was born

when the gods had died

and my insufferable youth

still sought among the cracks:

that was my office and for this

I felt so abandoned.

One bee plus one bee

do not make two bright bees

nor two dark bees:

they make a sun system,

a room of topaz,

a dangerous caress.

The first disquiet of amber

two yellow bees are

and bound to the same bees

labors the sun of each day:

it angers me to teach so many

of my ridiculous secrets.

But they are going to keep questioning

my relationships with cats,

how I discovered the rainbow,

why the worthy chestnut-trees

dressed themselves with hedgehogs,

and above all that I tell them

what the toads think of me,

the animals concealed

under the fragrance of the woods

or in the pustules of cement.

It’s the truth that among the wise

I have been uniquely ignorant

and among the less than wise

I always knew a little less

and so little was my knowledge

that I learned wisdom.

Pablo Neruda