Ah.
The other book of poems.
This is Blind Huber.
Rodney's talked about that.
Do you remember?
[LAUGHTER]
Long time ago.
It's Huber, as you all know, is the 17th-century French
beekeeper, François Huber.
I'm sure you've all studied.
[LAUGHTER]
I didn't study him very much.
I knew about four things about him when I wrote this book.
I knew that he was blind.
I knew that he was a beekeeper.
I knew he had an assistant named Burnens.
And they worked together for 50 years.
And I knew that he was very highly respected
as discovering or rediscovering everything we know about bees.
He sat before a hive for 50 years
and would have his assistant do things.
And then the assistant would come back and tell him
what happened when he did them.
[LAUGHTER]
And he figured everything out.
Before that, they thought that there was a king bee.
He figured out there was a queen bee.
That's big.
[LAUGHTER]
That's a big deal.
I'll read this one.
The book goes between Huber and a couple--
Burnens comes in a couple of times.
But then there's talking bees in this also in this book.
Apparently, it seems that bees are talking in the book.
We all know that bees can't talk,
but we don't know if this is part of Huber's imagination.
If he's just making it up or not, we're not sure.
The bees often contradict what Huber says.
When Huber says something, the bees
will come back and say the opposite
and say that he doesn't really know what's going on.
So this is a Huber poem.
It's called "Blind Huber."
"I sit in a body and think of a body.
I picture Burnens' hands, my words make them move.
I say, plunge them into the hive, and his hands go in.
If I said, put your head inside, he would wear it.
Think of my body, every day the same chair, angled thus.
Burnens every day, I think of his body,
think of a hive, each bee, each thought,
the hive brims with thought.
Move it into shade, I think, and the body move to shade.
Whose fingers, which word, each surges from inside my head,
but always returns as Burnens."