Honeybee : poems & short prose

"Nye's sheer joy in communicating, creativity, and caring shine through."--Kirkus Reviews

A moving and celebratory poetry collection from Young People's Poet Laureate and National Book Award Finalist Naomi Shihab Nye. This resonant volume explores the similarities we share with the people around us--family, friends, and complete strangers.

Honey. Beeswax. Pollinate. Hive. Colony. Work. Dance. Communicate. Industrious. Buzz. Sting. Cooperate.

Where would we be without honeybees Where would we be without one another

In eighty-two poems and paragraphs (including the renowned Gate A-4), Naomi Shihab Nye alights on the essentials of our time--our loved ones, our dense air, our wars, our memories, our planet--and leaves us feeling curiously sweeter and profoundly soothed.

Includes an introduction by the poet.

Your buddy is typing -- Someone you will not meet -- A stone so big you could live in it -- Museum -- For my desk -- Communication skills -- The United States is not the world -- Taverne du passage -- Wee path -- Password -- The frogs did not forget -- Missing it -- The crickets welcome me to Japan -- Ted Kooser is my president -- How we talk about it -- Culture of life -- Missing Thomas Jefferson -- Don't say -- Running egret -- Lion Park -- The little bun of hours -- Pollen -- Honeybees drinking -- Weird hurt -- We are the people -- Help with your homework -- Busy bee takes a break -- Bees were better -- Invisible -- Girls, girls -- What happened to the air -- Slump -- Deputies raid Bexar cockfight -- Accuracy -- This is not a dog urinal -- Argument -- There was no wind -- Companions.

For a hermit -- Letters my prez is not sending -- Broken -- The cost -- Friendly postal clerk, Saturday morning -- While you were out -- Driving to Abilene in the pouring rain -- Cinnamon twist -- Sunday -- We are not nothing -- Our best selves -- The dirtiest 4-letter word -- RSVP -- Boathouse -- The problem of muchness -- How do I know when a poem is finished? -- Excuse me but -- Bears -- Pacify -- To one now grown -- Watch your language -- Cat plate -- Click -- Hibernate -- My president went -- Texas swing low -- From an island -- The white cat -- Ducks in couples -- Campaigning door to door -- Parents of murdered Palestinian boy donate his organs to Israelis -- Before I read the kite runner -- The first time I was old -- Useless -- Jonathan's kiwi cake -- Consolation -- For Rudolf Staffel -- Hot stone masage -- Regular days -- Last day of school -- Young drummer leaving Alamo Music Company -- The room in which we are every age at once -- Gate A-4.

Honeybee Poems & Short Prose Chapter One Your Buddy Is Typing Your buddy in the early hours. Your buddy with the scratchy throat who didn't sleep well. On the other side of the earth he is rising, making a single cup of coffee, sitting down at a small wooden table. Your buddy who hasn't shaved in weeks. Your buddy in Nuevo Laredo missing the old days the easy crossings of borders the wanderings in streets without fear. Your buddy who doesn't want to see any bullets is typing a letter he will not sign. Your buddy with the aching wrist. Your buddy with high hopes watching sun come up over calm water thinking, we'll make it, maybe. Your buddy who sends 17 letters in 14 days. A surge of random observations but nothing is random. No one alone. The bold buddy and the shy one with a closet of stacked pages. The young buddy whose grandfather the great writer has been hiding for years. Your buddy in Japan who wishes your heart to feel like a primrose. Your buddy in Glasgow eating a radish as he types in golden light. Your buddy in a head scarf begging for sense. Your buddy in a sari who bosses the men. Your buddy who types with three fingers like you do. Your buddy in Australia your weary buddy in the airport lounge your buddy in the village library your buddy in the wireless hotel room where even the rod under the clothes lights up your buddy on the brink your buddy who was reminded what words could do after he swore they could do nothing anymore your buddy in Bethlehem who wonders if anyone listens your buddy who is feeling weak your buddy who tells what is really going on behind the scenes your buddy who refuses to back down your lost buddy who won't speak to you punishing you for reasons unknown even she must be typing to someone else by now, trust in this as you say good-bye give it up, typing will help you get through it no matter where you are when the restaurants close and the little shops you loved bolt their doors for the last time and the artist you wish you'd known better dies suddenly, you grip the memory of minor messages sent back and forth only months ago. Who else should you be typing to right now? Who else is on the way out? All of us. Everyone typing in the late and early in the far reaches in the remote unknowns in the heart of the diagnosis near the fishing huts with Catch of the Day signs the names of fish scrawled on blackboards by the whispering sea. Someone You Will Not Meet Rolls her socks into balls, lines them in a shoebox. Sharpens a yellow pencil carefully checking the point. There used to be plenty of pencils. Stares into a mirror thinking fat nose, fat nose . Pins a green bow to her head, plucks it off again. Worries about loud noises. Wraps presents in the same crumpled paper over and over again for members of her own family. Gives her brother an orange because he likes them more than she does. He complains, I am sick of this life . She fusses at him, Don't say that . Gives her mother a handwritten booklet made of folded papers called One Apartment . The people she loves most are in it. The uncles who come and go are in it. Lucky ducks. They are afraid every time they go but they brave it. A few cats and plants and rugs are in it, square television set with a scrappy picture, and the streams of bees swooping to the jasmine vine right outside the window. They dip into blossoms and fly away. Never could she have imagined being jealous of a bee. She listens to the radio say there will be more fighting though no one she knows likes fighting. Does anyone feel happy after fighting? It's a mystery. She chews on a sesame cookie very very slowly. Staring at the sesame seeds she could almost give them names. Honeybee Poems & Short Prose . Copyright © by Naomi Nye. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Honeybee: Poems and Short Prose by Naomi Shihab Nye All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.