I spent the day learning

I spent the day learning. Walking to the wooden bench, I greeted the mushroom, the tree, and riverbank. They responded with a pleasant glance. The way all nature greats its inhabitants. So much nature. It never fails, never stays still. I wish I could be nature. To spend a life growing, observing. Sinking my roots into nutrient soil and asking why humans are so strange. Their two legs hurrying and stepping on whatever lies beneath. And I like to come and stare as nature holds art in the palm of her hand. I despise how Hegel writes that nature isn’t art. Where is his proof? Has Hegel seen a storm role in on a Tennessee evening? Has Hegel felt an ocean wave wash over his face and his feet swept under the water’s force? Has Hegel heard a hummingbird hover over of a summer bloom for a sip of nectar? Or am I too lenient on my definitions? But slowly, from my stare into nature, I learn something. Perhaps nature sees me as art like how I see nature as art. At a quick glance, both art and nature become a blur. A nothing that speaks nothing. But at an open stare, both art and nature speak as a living something. Does this mean I’m art? I could never claim such an attribute with such little life lived. But maybe I can begin with nature. I am in nature. I am nature? I am nature. So, I greet the wooden bench, the sky above, and the dirt below. I greet myself. Why hello, what are you doing today? “I am learning,” I say aloud. The mushroom tilted its little head, the tree swayed its branch, and the riverbank winked. “I am learning,” I whisper. Suddenly, wind roams in and carries my stream of tears away. The droplets sparkle then evaporate, and I hear a thought. A thought that’s not exactly my own but one that’s always been in me. “I see you.” I look nature in the eye, “I see you too.”