Nature Poem Poem by Cat Singh

Nature always makes me think
of my grandfather.
We used to walk to church some Saturdays,
and he would teach us the names
of all the trees. I don't remember
what any of them were called though,
just that the light shone through the leaves
like a thousand tiny spotlights
and my sister twirled through it
with her arms outstretched.

He taught us the flowers and the berries too,
a tiny huge world
all around us and between our fingertips.
I remember Queen Anne's Lace:
little bouquet of white, a gift in its very being,
but I do not remember much else.
Just riding on shoulders and melting
into the sky, just being small
and having bangs like Dora the Explorer,
exploring the world and learning nothing
but maybe the feeling
of being loved.

I had a weird dream the other night
where we slept in a park.
It was nice.
But I kept waking up and feeling
like my life was in pieces
and I needed water and death
and maybe someone—

It was a dream about nature,
about the feeling of grass under the back
of your head, how it mingles with your hair,
how your hair and the grass
are two types of the same thing,
how you and the world are really one entity.
I kept waking up though
and remembering I was alone.

I always think of my grandfather
when I look up at the trees.
I think of how he reads books about them
and raises his eyebrows
like it will make him see better.
My mom says that trees like it
when you climb them and feel fear
when you cut them down.
I want to know the names of the trees
I dream about. I want this world
to be as real as dreams.

I felt the grass and gravel under my feet
this morning when I went to get the mail.
I woke up—
I needed water and death
and maybe someone—