relative

wanderers
wonderers
tramplers
trespassers
tree huggers
forest bathers
guests

please stop
and consider
and imagine
this

though
it cannot be proven
through scientific
tests with
assurance that 
that maple tree
or that raccoon
or that river
or that daisy
or robin
can
understand
feel
ascertain
what's best
about

your spiritual awakening
your need for space
or
your oneness within

but surely
you can 
appreciate 
that in
a turned stone
or a bent blade
or a snapped stick
or any of it
could be life
changing
to an
ant.

and to the
flora and fauna
the CO2
traces from your
riverside 
chanting mantras
likely offends
as easily 
as morning
breath.

imagine
your mood swing
if you awoke
to four fewer
walls in your
house
or the smell
of smoke
from your
kitchen.

still not sure?

imagine
starlings picking 
your locks
rabbits no-knock 
warranting your warren
or
an oak bashing in 
your back door.

for sure
to assume that 
they have not
at considered length 
noticed you 
measured you
unraveled you
despite their collective 
legions 
the thousands of sensors-
eyes 
and not eyes, 
ears 
and not ears, 
noses, 
mouths, 
appendages,
teeth
and
claws-
is truly 
sadly 
typically
human of you
an apposite
animal
indeed. 

these
forest people
eating light 
breathing water 
hearing vibrations 
and
seeing sound
do notice
and
when put that way
it’s easy to
feel ridiculously
under evolved. 

me, my friends
that I love
are pretty
gustatorily-typical
folx
all
hands and forks
into mouths

unrefined 
yet we endure
in our
impure
over refrigerated
lightly cooked
seasoned beyond
comprehension 
Uber food chains
really its
assured
that someday
some worm
will say to
some other worm- 
idk but this shit
tastes fake. 

for now
my hot take
the fact
they let this 
disastrously
overfamiliar 
friendly giant
toddler
ignore the 
childhood rules
of animism
[teddy bears
be damned]

suggests a 
measure
of care and 
kindness and
let it be-ness and
mattering.

and that i
am not able
to ask
directly
'what do you
think of me?'
or
'may i enter?'
or
'what family member
have i stepped on?'
in the same
moment
that they scatter
from view

is literally 
because I have
never taken the time
to learn the local
language
or weigh out
my baggage 
or put roots
down too. 

wanderers
wonderers
tramplers
trespassers
tree huggers
forest bathers
guests

please stop
and consider
and imagine.