Inspired by Canto [16]

I am of the quiet and the loud, of the fragile flower and the solid rock,I am of the solid oaks and little splinters of wood,Destroyed yet destructive, tiny pieces an impossible puzzle ready to pierce anyone who tries to glue it back together.An empath set on paths indeterminate by any calculation, the emotions of the trees, the birds, the people, clear in my own wanderlust.Looking to venture far and stay close to anything new and anything the same, familiar and unfamiliar in one space.Born in the West, raised in the East,A hiker trekking through a concrete jungle.At home in secluded parks and soft shadows,At home in vestiges of the earth buried under concrete, the little shoots of green between sidewalk cracks carry the dissolving memory of the untamed,At home in the cradle of cherry and oak branches, unseen by anything but the sparrows and acorns.

Mine are the bones of a scientist, ribs of rational logic guard a heart stirring a flurry of unpredictable colors,Raised playing frisbee in the electromagnetic field, eating spaghetti at the periodic table,Raised running in cool grass, feeling the morning dewey decimal system beneath my bare feet Raised climbing tree diagrams, hanging from branch predications, tripping over the roots of quadratics,Raised collecting little computer bugs in jars ,Raised by microscopes and calculators, theories of evolution and relativity,Everything is evolving, everything is relative,Spinning silver gears and whirling helicopter seeds become an amorphous mixture in my childhood mind.

A listener, an observer,Sitting in front of the piano, told sit up straight and don’t bang on the keys. I am too quiet, I am to speak up, I am two in one, or countless in one, condensed into raise your hand and sit still,Taught to love herself, to know she is beautifulBut no one wants to see a girl with tangled hair or fraying braids.Taught to sing and laugh and cry,But no one takes a girl seriously if she sings and laughs and cries.

A child running through the rye, no catcher in sightRunning to intercept falling leaves and falling hopes Running to hear the rush of wind in her deafened ears.