I’m so green at this, my mother says
on the phone, meaning,
I don’t know how to do this yet, meaning,

Oh my God, sixty years on this planet
and I’m still unsure of even the nearest
geography. We think dying

will be the hardest act, but the greatest
unknowns are right in front of us
when we wake, and we just have to keep

walking into them. Of course
you’re green at this, I want to say.
Let’s not pretend it’s easy to be

here. We’ve been living like
there’s a way to be good at living,
but living is a landscape

we can’t fully see, some corner
of it always in our blind spot.
All we can do, really, is follow

the calls we hear to this tree,
that one, this patch of moss, this
murky river, this love, this swift song

from above, get lost, get wet, find
new land, let our lives unfold like
imperfect poetry, get greener and

greener and greener.