Adapted from a tumblr post by headspace-hotel

do you know what has been taken?
do you know what has been lost?
let me say, I have been shaken
by what our concrete life has cost

some fireflies light up in blue
and insects come in thousand cloths
of every pattern, every hue
do you know about the moths?

with names like "black-etched prominent"
"small mossy glyph" and "purple fairy"
(I say this as a compliment)
the nomenclature: legendary

the moth that feeds on lichen: do you know it?
or do you know the shimmering blue-green bees?
and if you know a child, can you show it
a rainbow-colored dogbane beetle, please?

your trees and stones should host all sorts of moss
your streams be full of newts and frogs and fishes
that they are not: an unimaginable loss
there's so much life! and much of it delicious!

there's species native to some tiny spot of land
that only here, in this one space they thrive
I want do show you, take you by the hand
say: this exists! it's real! and it's alive!

if you have not been out in nature, then you missed it
much of it you will not find on websites listed
I only know from observation, being interested
each day I see a new plant that I didn't know existed!

I'd name them all - yes, every single one - if just I could
there's trees - obscure, but not that rare - you might have never seen
sourwood, kentucky coffeetree, striped maple, yellowwood
ninebark, rusty blackhaw, or the hophornbeam

you know the purple coneflower, the prairie blazing star
yet there are countless others just as nice, but of less fame
it's hard to overstate just oh, how many plants there are
for which what's now suburbian waste is from where they came

you'll never know what's native to the place you call your home
because our homes (comparatively) are so barren, razed and dead
and there we have no reason to suspect that when we roam
ten thousand wondrous living things are everywhere instead

it's like a fish that all its life has lived inside a bucket
imagine the expanse of ocean: it can not, not ever
the insects in your field guide: they are just a fraction! tuck it
away and go, experience them all, out in the weather!

more things are real than any single person can imagine
the world's with critters, mushrooms, beetles, grasses rife
tread carefully! treat it with kindness and compassion
welcome to earth! it's beautiful! it's full of life!