Over the summer, my friend Helene and I were sitting in my backyard in upstate New York talking about the importance of feeling connected to nature. After spending the first month of my summer in Berlin, and Helene having been on the road with their family, it was wonderful to reunite and catch up under
TagNature
A Mindful Stroll Through The Neighborhood Forest
Today, on another cloudy day in Pankow, I decided to take a walk. With the start of the semester feeling like coming out of a summer induced snooze, I’ve been trying to remain grounded by going outside and wandering. Sometimes these walks take me towards the city center—all noise and delightful people-watching. But other times,
Her Hardest Hue to Hold
Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. -Robert Frost We decided it was the best place to study flamingos, but camping was
Spleen
The spring and I are strangers now, extending hungry glances through fat green stems and the blush of fallen berries— those beloved friends of the pilgrim’s foot. More and more I slip into the soil to read the pages of rock. Retreating to the muddy infinite, I spy the fleshy leviathan, earthworm tonguing a
Why Did You Twist Me Up?
Was the Moon A witness Or an accomplice? I can’t tell But, Both times It was there Sleepless Swollen eye An overripe orange That I mistook For the sun Why did you twist me up? I ask the staring eye Who, Clutching every reply Doubts to confide Even a hiccup Hollow Pulp-less fruit With
Foreign Plants Grow Between My Toes
I couldn’t name a sparrow from a line-up of birds nor tell you what the ants dancing in my summer yard do after dark or before it or during I couldn’t confess which flowers bloom forth from my soul today—I’d have to look them up. Most of the Romantics are lost on me;
Metal Birds
Far behind the house’s rear, among moss and dead leaves was a spring. Connected to the spring by a small staircase of large rocks lie a stream that flowed as a river when it rained and ran dry through summer and winter. Insects–gnats, mosquitos, flies–danced above puddled water in the day, the light giving shape