So the swarm balls and deserts

Seventy feet up, in a black pine tree.

It must be shot down. Pom! Pom!

So dumb it thinks bullets are thunder.

I love Sylvia Plath. She was a tragic, dark woman surrounded by trials and tribulations. Her life ended abruptly in suicide. But her writing is haunting and gorgeous and sustains her as one of the most influential poets of modern times. Agree?

The above is the way she closes a poem called “The Swarm”. I read it for the first time in a long time just the other day.

As my limited web research tells me, when bees swarm, sometimes they cluster in a ball high in a tree. They stay there until they decide where they want to go. Loud, sudden noises can make them come down to a lower level where the beekeeper can reach them and collect them. From here, the bees can be easily led and managed. In Plath’s poem, a shotgun blast does the trick.

I compare this to my journey in that it is easy for the world to make a loud noise, cause me to take my eyes off God, to lose focus and to spiral into the danger zone where I am easily led and managed away from my safe place on high. The loud noises are so tempting. They scream for attention. They are so very effective.

Remember when Peter was walking on water toward Jesus? He was doing great. But then the wind got “boisterous” and he hesitated, he became unfocused, he took his eyes off God…and he started sinking. Just like those bees. Down and out.

Sometimes the loud noise that gets me is just a distraction. Sometimes a wound. Sometimes a worry. A wavering of faith. A temptation. In any event, it can be hard to fight the  instinct to turn my head or duck upon hearing such a noise. Even when I’m walking on water, hearing from God in major ways, a loud clap can snap me right out of it. And down I go. Lured away. Dumb enough to think bullets are thunder.