Nature’s Small Gifts

fourth year sydney kohne

photo by atithi patel

there’s something to be said

for the days when the air is still

and the leaves hang,

suspended in the unbreathing wind,

and movement feels like molasses

they make you feel like when you

were six, and you chased fireflies

at the start of the dimming sun, the grass

a cool carpet under your bare feet,

and your neighbors stopped their nightly walk

to talk and chase with you 

or when you left your father’s house

and heard the rumble of lawnmowers, 

the bees buzzing by the window,

and saw the old neighbor woman

bending over her roses and pogonias

you could almost taste their scent

from your doorstep 

or when you sat by the timid water

and the only things there were

were the lick of the waves, 

the sunkissed glow on your skin,

and the sweat rolling down 

the bumps of your spine, 

falling to join the salty ocean 

and be forever a part of the tide

or when you watched your

little cousins play tag under the

warm yellow light of the street lamps 

in the cul-de-sac,

sweaty-faced and panting,

and then rest their skinny limbs

on the cool June asphalt

or when you sat on a park bench 

under the blooming cherry blossoms

in the spring

alone, silent, like no one else 

in that moment even lived,

and you were still happy.