Bee-lines, silk-thread tracers not
tangling, not weaving air
but straight to the sweet scent
carried wind-blown up the valley.
Time’s streak, time’s lapsed contrails,
eye-level or higher, more and more
gathering, sun-warmed, sun-driven,
hoards and hoarded, divvied, scrumming—
one and one and one—by instinct
ravenous, thousands and thousands,
bobbing, probing the white stacked
hives, fragrant, humming—by infidel
or Saracen defended, whose fierce
difference are queens of their making.