IN CELEBRATION: NATURE HOUSE

This is a poem I wrote for one of the little origami books I made for my students when I was a teacher naturalist at the Walker Nature Education Center:

I am a tree
The tree is me.

I breathe the air.
I breathe the light.

When no one looks I split water
with those fuzzy balls of light.

Electrons tumble and with the
breath of friends

sweet, sweet sugar I so sweetly make.

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I think the otherness of trees is what draws me to them. They appear not to be at all like us. The little communicating they do with each other is with molecules carried by the air.

But in spite of our differences there are similarities. The fibers of actin and myosin that move our muscles are the same fibers that move plant structures.

At the heart of us and the trees there are billions of little dream catchers—configurations of molecules for catching things. At the center of our hemoglobin molecule there is a porphyrin ring, an atom of iron sits at its center. That atom of iron catches oxygen. A cascade of chemical reactions follows, blood cells move, and our cells breathe. In the leaves of trees in the chlorophyll molecule there is a similar porphyrin ring. At its center is a single atom of magnesium. The magnesium atom catches light. In the chemical cascade that follows sugar and oxygen are made.

We are brothers with trees. We are brothers in the blood. We are sisters in the breath.

When cascading chemical reactions pour through our bodies and through the leaves of trees, billions of “almost-photons” are released as electrons move from one spot, one realm to another in a veritable flood of light.

We and the trees are cousins in that light, in a kinship that stretches back to our shared bacterial forbearers.

When I taught at Walker I always told the kids the same thing: The real world is outside. Go outside and surprise yourself. You may see something no one else has ever seen before. If you see something, write about it. The things you see are important. We are only just beginning to understand the world. We need everyone to help figure it all out.

The land at Walker Nature Education Center was set aside and saved for us, but not just to be a sanctuary. It was saved to be a place where our collective learning about the earth, her systems, her life forms, and the connections we share with each other can begin anew with each generation.

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Another child
running ahead
running on the path
running to be alone
running to see everything
everything first
first on the path
everything on the path
first
first child.

Kathy Walden Kaplan

Walker Nature Education Center’s Nature House is now open. 11450 Glade Drive, Reston, VA 20191