The Bee

To the football coaches of Clemson College, 1942

One dotGrainily shifting we at roadside andThe smallest wings coming along the rail fence outOf the woods one do of all that green. It nowBecomes flesh-crawling then the quite stillOf stinging. I must live faster for my terrifiedSmall son it is on him. Has come. Clings.

Old wingback, comeTo life. If your knee action is highEnough, the fat may fall in time God damnYou, Dickey, dig this is your last time to cutAnd run but you must give it everything you haveLeft, for screaming near your screaming child is the sheerMurder of California traffic: some bee hands driving

Your childBlindly into the highway. Get there howeverIs still possible. Long live what I badly didAt Clemson and all of my clumsiest drivesFor the ball all of my trying to turnThe corner downfield and my spindling explosionsThrough the five-hole over tackle. O backfield

Coach Shag Norton,Tell me as you never yet have told meTo get the lead out scream whatever will getThe slow-motion of middle age off  I cannotMake it this way I will have to leaveMy feet    they are gone I have him whereHe lives and down we go singing with screams into

The dirt,Son-screams of fathers screams of dead coaches turningTo approval and from between us the bee rises screamingWith flight grainily shifting riding the rail fenceBack into the woods traffic blasting pst usUnchanged, nothing heard through the air-conditioning  we lying at roadside full

Of the forearm printsOf roadrocks strawberries on our elbows as fromScrimmage with the varsity now we can getUp stand turn away from the highway look straightInto trees. See, there is nothing coming out noSmallest wing no shift of a flight-grain nothingNothing. Let us go in, son, and listen

For some tobacco-mumbling voice in the branches to say “That’sa little better,” to our lives still hangingBy a hair. There is nothing to stop us we can goDeep deeper into elms, and listen to traffic dieRoaring, like a football crowd from which we haveVanished. Dead coaches live in the air, son live

In the earLike fathers, and urge and urge. They want you betterThan you are. When needed, they rise and curse you they screamWhen something must be saved. Here, under this tree,We can sit down. You can sleep, and I can tryTo give back what I have earned by keeping usAlive, and safe from bees: the smile of some kind

Of savior—Of touchdowns, of fumbles, battles,Lives. Let me sit here with you, sonas on the bench, while the first string takes backOver, far away and say with my silentest tongue, with the man-creating bruises on my arms with a live leaf a quickDead hand on my shoulder, “Coach Norton, I am your boy.”

from Falling (1967)