what i take, what i leave
Dublin, CA
2025, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
i take the chill shade under an oak tree in late afternoon,
stretch my legs in the grass, watch sunlight sneak through leaves:
a borrowed comfort i never had to ask for.
i take the shush of rain on the roof when i can’t sleep,
how it softens the world, fading the harshness of a day
that i wish i could forget.
i take the wind that carries the smell of fresh earth,
tossing pollen and tickling a sneeze from me,
proving that beauty isn’t always gentle.
i take the river’s patience and the sky’s endlessness,
the way river moves past everything
untroubled, and the sky vacillates
from tines of light to veined with lightning,
all ticking forward without my noticing.
and in return, i leave footprints in the mud,
a crumpled shape in the grass where i sat too long,
the faint ripple where my fingers touched the river’s surface.
sometimes, i watch ants rebuilding after the rain,
their sisyphean work going from grain to house to ruin,
or find a furious sunburn stripe across my arm whose cause snuck up on me,
red and hot,
and i wonder if i am always wanting,
never sure how to give back,
hoping that if i sit quietly enough,
the world will allow me to stay.
and sometimes, when the sun is low and the grass is cool,
my body seems almost the same temperature as everything around it,
i can almost believe that it’s enough.
Spoken Word Video
Reflection
Reflection
The idea for my poem grew from the quiet moments that I spent outdoors (ex., lying in the grass, listening to the rain, or watching the clouds shift above me). I wanted to capture the subtle ways we take comfort from nature, and the small, almost invisible marks we leave behind when we are gentle with nature. I was drawn to the give-and-take between people and the world outside, and I wanted my poem to reflect both the gratitude and uncertainty about what and how we give back. Exploring this theme made me realize how much of my relationship with nature is shaped by small rituals (ex. sitting under a tree, feeling the wind). I learned through this theme that connection isn't always a grand gesture or obvious; sometimes it's found in the smallest interactions. My message to the readers is that our presence in nature matters, even in quiet ways. We take comfort and leave traces. I tried to evoke how sometimes nature makes us feel like we need to do more to justify our reliance on nature. I wanted to end with the complex realization that just being there (paying attention) might be enough but that we need to constantly question and renegotiate our relationship with nature.