For the Sin of Bossiness

For SSA choir. Duration - 5 minutes.

Queen of the Bees, your hum builds hives,
bores a buzz in the hearts of drones.
Your stinger stuns your last week’s rival
and sends her spiraling to the hay.
All the pretty boys listen from above the stalls;
they hate for you to call their name.
This stable your palace where you command
workers at your feet or out on flowered streets.
Why does it all sound like honey on your tongue?
Your venom entombed in combs, you never leave
but reign over the fields your workers keep
while you complain of them and sleep.
The horses swat their tails, swipe as flies flit by.
They don’t even hear your little bee-speak.

-Rebecca Morgan Frank

Program Note:

Rebecca Morgan Frank’s poetry collection Little Murders Everywhere contains a wealth of her carefully considered works, include a series of sonnets on everyday sins. Some of these sins are characteristically female “sins” – gossip, passiveness and bossiness. Using natural imagery, these sonnets portray these “sins”, employing gossipy pigeons, a lazy whippet and finally a queen bee who finds herself ignored.

Commissioned by La Caccina.