An Apiary of Colossal Proportions

We wonder/ what we’re not/ in the field.

The whole planet is, now, you’d suppose,

Parked again by the side of the road,

While bees investigate, a bit close

For comfort, but they’re just exploring,

Foraging on behalf of the hive.

Their efforts impress and bemuse you,

As those of your own species do, too.

A rocket is launched every day now.

Every day, new robots waggle dance.

On the basalt cliffs, some free-range cows,

Like brand-new, inky stones of their own,

Investigate brush for edibles,

While another winter honeybee

Enters and exits the car window.

That hunger should have come to rockets

And robot telescopes foraging. . . .

It has an escape velocity,

Hunger does. It’s life. It never ends,

Except in every living being.

It doesn’t know how to stop being

Hungry—so that, sufficiently fed,

The organisms turn to new things,

Interesting, inedible things,

And, next thing you know, hunger’s escaped

To microgravity, satellites,

Sounding rockets with instrument probes,

As if the whole planet were one hive,

One apiary of colossal

Proportions—and, after all, metal

Bees are more kin to the iron core

Of this rock than insects are, or cows,

Or you, parked by the side of the road,

Staring, vaguely hungry, at the field.