Poem: The Need to Understand

The Need to Understand

I cannot tell trees apart
or name the flowers, the bushes,
the birds.  I do not even know,
most of the time, what lake 
or river it is
we are seeing
as we pass them.
I am not attuned
to those things,
am not trained
in that awareness.
It may be
I would enjoy it more
if I had such knowledge,
but I do not 
and do not believe
I possess the skills for it.
I am not good at color or shape,
do not remember patterns well.
I once tried to memorize cloud shapes,
to learn their structures and formations.
It did not stick either.
I still enjoy looking at the sky,
I have learned to do it
without the need to parse.

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