pine, n. and v.
Lindsay Stuart Hill
pine, n. and v.
for the nun Ryōnen Gensō (1646-1711)
Years until you take the tonsure, years
until I learn to learn, and I can’t stand
to sit inside the crawlspace of this word
so I’ll turn it to a window, open it to you,
pretend it’s different when you speak it—
just the tree, a murmuring eternity,
I’ll believe our living could be like
learning a new language, where
every word holds just one meaning
and that’s enough. I see you,
new attendant in the empress’s chamber,
facing a wall of golden air papered
with golden clouds, inked with a stand
of pines: staircases to nowhere.
Tracing each branch with a finger,
remembering the boy you once heard
breathing outside your first house
with its walls so thin, nearly nothing
between you. Such pines. Painted
at the edge of a painted sea, sea shells painted
on the painted shore. There is always
another meaning: waiting, in your language.
Like longing’s bone with its marrow
sucked out. There is always
a stilled verb, like the shell your finger
has trailed down to on the wall:
all that one small life has left behind.
You press your ear to it and hear inside
a painting of the wind.
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Pine
To Ryonen Genso, 1646-17
I’m lonely, so I’ll turn this needling word into a window
and open it to you.
I’ll imagine it is simpler
when you speak it: just the tree,
a murmuring eternity.
(If our living could be like that, like
learning a new language—
for every word, just one meaning.
If that could be enough. )
I see you in the empress’s chamber, facing
the wall of gold air plastered
with gold clouds, inked with a stand
of pines, staircases
to nowhere. You’re tracing the sweep of their branches,
thinking of the boy
you heard scrambling in the street, breathing big-lunged
outside your first home, the wall so thin there was nearly nothing
between you. Such pines. Painted at the edge of a painted sea, sea shells
painted on the painted shore. In truth, it’s not so different in your language:
there is always another meaning. To pine, to wait. Like the bone of our longing
with its marrow of ache sucked out. Like one of the shells on the wall before you—
imagine the hand that drew what some small life left behind. You put your ear to it,
and hear inside a painting of the wind.
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Pines
Pining
And no, and not, and stop.
And wrong and wrong.
I made it wholly
[Tonight, the only thing that’s mine—
this inner violence I choose
in place of “pining.”] I’ll If I could turn the word
into a window and open it
to you (your gust of winter air into
my heat-addled room) though Though
seems so
it’s ^different in your language,
more faithful, singular in purpose—
near-
just be the tree, a murmuring ^eternity.
To let each word lose your longing,
let into one meaning slip the two!
To lose your my longing, let I’ll assign each word
have just one meaning, and let that be
enough for now. Let it be like learning
a new language. You stand
in the empress’s chamber, facing a wall
of gold air papered plastered with gold clouds, painted with a stand
of three black pines, staircases
to nowhere, and you remember
the boy you heard through the wall
of your first home scrambling in
the street, so close breathing big-
lunged, so close through the wall of your first home
so thin, almost
a nothingness between you,
and how you snapped to rapt
attention, forgetting him for the sound
and how and the scent of pine was that
was here, somewhere, climbing up also breathing
through cracks almost through floorboards
the wall, maybe even
and for the scent of pine that,
somehow, also breathed through the wall.
Now, the empress’s wall. Now, the
scentless pines, painted at the edge
and
of a painted sea,^ sea shells painted
at on the painted shore, and you put
painting of
your ear to one of them—^what
slimy
some small,^ life wriggling, coated
in slime—has managed at last to
leave behind. But you are no
truly
fool But what has it ^left
behind? [But what is it that does the leaving behind?]
You are no fool. I
I keep the window open
You know a painted shell
In a painted shell
you still hear the sea
and still hear the sea
A shell, painted or real,
may still contain it.
You know there
are rooms, distant rooms
where men travel miles
without leaving their seats
[Not longing, just waiting]
And you’ll travel there.
You touch the painted air again
and all the gold
curl and
seems to ^ peel, as if
your fingers were made of fear fire.
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Process Statement
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Lindsay Stuart Hill’s first full-length poetry collection, World of Dew (2025), won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review, and The Southern Review, among other publications. She received her MFA from the University of Virginia, where she was the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize. More at www.lindsaystuarthill.com.
“Pine, n. and v.” was originally published in The Cincinnati Review, vol 19.2 in Fall 2022.
Read Issue One