Jamie Grant: ‘Tinnitus’

Tinnitus

The hum of a powerful engine idling

among the trees;

but when one looks up at the light

thousands of bees

are swarming, a galaxy of dark stars,

making their sound

in unison as they swirl and orbit

above the ground,

before, also in unison, they return

to their hive,

a fungus-like growth on a tree-fork.

The bees live

like humans in an apartment building

side by side

in furnished comfortable cells

well supplied

with warmth and nourishment, and drones

set out each day

to perform the tasks assigned to them

where flowers sway

in the breeze. They hover like anxious parents

over each petal

loaded with pollen, before choosing one

to settle

on, then become like window cleaners attached

to a high-rise

office tower—and those structures resemble a hive,

though of a size

and form less natural and organic

than these bags

slung over the bare stripped shoulders of ghost gums.

Discarded rags

on the ground are sheets of bark fallen

from the trees,

while deep in the earth the ants work to build

their cities.

Like tinnitus, the sound that the bees make seems

to linger

after it has gone, a sound hard to place

one’s finger

on, like the buzz one absorbs when close to an electric

power line

or like a bathroom fan’s half-heard, half-silent

constant whine.

Jamie Grant