perzephone | Sometimes I Miss Things...

and think to myself, "Why have I never heard of this before?"

Personal anthology: Osip Mandelstam
Take from my palms, to soothe your heart,
a little honey, a little sun,
in obedience to Persephone's bees.

You can't untie a boat that was never moored,
nor hear a shadow in its furs,
nor move through thick life without fear.

For us, all that's left is kisses
tattered as the little bees
that die when they leave the hive.

Deep in the transparent night they're still humming,
at home in the dark wood of the mountain,
in the mint and lungwort of the past.

But lay to your heart my rough gift,
this unlovely dry necklace of dead bees
that once made a sun out of honey.

— Osip Mandelstam (tr. Clarence Brown and W. S. Merwin)

A song came on the streaming radio by a group called, of all things, Persephone's Bees. I went 'WoW!' & read up on their bio, which mentioned the line from this poem. It's enough to make me cry at work.