Rows of pines, planted years ago – so many,
were you to count them on your fingers, you
would give up past a hundred span; and pain
doesn’t yet know about it, while lording

over all other feeling. Must explain these things
some day. In the meantime, rows
of pines, the quincunx pattern lost
in spirals and thickets of lesser branches

increasing their reach inexorably. The man
spoke of the bees: move the hive five miles
and they’ll find their way; move it five feet,

and they’ll die of confounding. A stacking
of three green boxes in the clearing,
the numbers buzzing among the numbers.