Happy Earth Day! Nature is the most potent healer, and I am so grateful for my connection with her.
Moving away from the stunningly gorgeous Sierra Nevada mountains to the crowded Southern California suburbs has challenged my relationship with nature. The beautiful thing about nature, though, is that you don’t have to go to a National Park to experience it. You are nature. I am nature. The sparrow in your yard is nature.
I live next to a huge swath of undeveloped land, which has saved my sanity and helped me continue to cultivate a connection with nature even as I live somewhere that’s more concrete than trail dust.
To celebrate this planet and the pockets of nature that serve as refuge, please enjoy this little poem dedicated to my favorite park.
Ode to a Suburban Park
A place where
Walking
You hear more birds
Than cars
The only wheels in sight
Belong to beach cruisers
As rusty and beat up
As the locals who ride them
Everyone is a local here
After a certain number of sunburns
And hungover mornings
Bleeding into drunken days
Full of sun and wind
and “there’s nothing wrong with 73 degrees”
My father likes to say
Family that I miss after
Running away
Blackbirds call from both sides
Encasing you in their hopeful song
They hide in dense brush on
The salt marsh in the park
Green grass —
Let’s call it what it is
The name of a thing is so important
My father gave me mine—
Lawn, the lawn
I wonder but know
That a brown or black
Man cuts this lawn
Like a brown man cuts
My lawn
And blows the leaves
And dirt with a violently
Loud leafblower
A place
Where
Walking
In the lawn next to the marsh
You hear more blackbirds than cars
Finches, too, but they hide
The only wings seen here
On butterflies
As big as my hand
And as yellow as the hubcaps
Of grandpa’s John Deere
The name of a machine is
So important
Blower of leaves
Mover of harvest
Creator of bales
Each its own machine
Costing almost as much
As a month’s rent In
This coastal paradise
Where we can at least breathe
And feel the sun on our faces
My cat loves our lawn
Freshly cut or jungle wild
I adopted him sickly,
A baby,
Blind and infected
We had to take out his eyes
He’s never known sight
And I like to think he’s
Happier for it
At least he can’t devour the birds