Dancing towards Marathon

Bees use honey as a source of energy,
and a green— err— yellowhouse to trap the heat of the world
to warm their lives and larvae.
Long gone cultures gave honey
to their warriors, filling them
with energy and courage.
Other long gone cultures
used honey to embalm their dead.
Some people put honey in tea
to flavor it up.
Giving warmth or
giving energy,
honoring those you care for,
making bitter things taste sweet:
these are all good uses for honey,
and i have heard of none that are bad.

The need to run
to run and not stop
no matter how it hurts
how much wind is knocked out of you
how much energy has leaked away
each step
brings you closer to the end.
And here the end has two meanings;
there's two ends you are running towards
just like Pheidippides (although he didn't
know about the second end of his race,
he had no honey to keep him going).
The end you can choose to stop chasing
is the one you should never stop running for
ever
except to take a breather.
Take a breather.
It will hurt a while more before things stabilize
before your heart starts beating normal
before your throat stops burning,
and once the symptoms pass
we all run again
and on until
we reach the end we were going towards
since the beginning.
But that's the end that doesn't
really matter.

Bees telling each other where they've been,
where they're going,
where they are,
by dancing.
They spin about each other,
never touching,
dancing towards Marathon,
and neither of them
will fall to the Persians,
they'll both watch each other's
backs. After all,
what is the best offense:
escape or attack?
Friendship.

I lit my arms on fire,
"Warm arms" I quote.
"mmmmm... perhaps too warm," someone says.
I put the oceans into a thermos.
"Drink," I say.
"No one is going to drink that. It's salt water," someone says.
Forks and sporks pop out of my knuckles
like Wolverine I war growl-scream,
"Kitchen UTENSILS!"
*sigh* goes someone.
So, instead I put on a sweater
and a blanket,
mix up a couple of hot cocoas,
and put a spoon in each
to stir the marshmellows with.

"Someday," I say to you,
"we'll have to look back at all this
and tell what we thought it meant
and explain
what it precisely meant,
because I have the feeling I only got
half of it, for sure,
no matter how clever and quick you think
I am."