Telling the Bees

my father walked out
he drops his keys 

leaves them on the step
ten years

drop I pick them up
oh run to the hive

sing sweet bees
sweet father has left 

I rattle like thunder
not dead not dead yet

they answer I float
on the wind

become a woman in childbirth
go to the river with bees

in my trembling hand
twenty years

drop sweet crumbs
ravenous  by the hive

he falls on his knees to the tune
of the bees not alive not alive

thirty years 
drop sweet father sweet father

bees buzz where he stopped
on the step