You Must Be Present

José Olivarez

i say to myself when the what wheres
all up in the how now—trees! i turn

to the trees for relief & they say nah!
don't look at us. you don't even know our names.

you don't even know the difference between
an oak tree & a maple tree. it's true:

my relationship with (love) (nature) (money)
(fill in the blank) is like my relationship to weather—

i only see it when it's pouring on my head.
i'm sorry to the trees i grew up with.

i didn't ask. i never learned. or even wondered (about their names).
(their families) (their longings) i only dreamed of (me)

climbing onto their shoulders. honestly, i was a ladybug
to them—only heavier & more annoying. those trees i grew up with

were generations older than me. they were practiced
at living in a way i will never understand & all i could imagine

was the view from their crown. oak trees. they were oak trees
with their own history of migration. rooted in calumet city

like me. if i asked them for answers, i wouldn't have understood:
sunlight. water. sunlight. water. sunlight. water.