not the numbers, the dates, nor the wars,
not even the grocery list, when to rotate the tires
or what year your mother’s mother’s mother died—
we can write all that down and keep track.
I mean the soft peck of a chick the first time you held one,
blackberries and raspberries, in their season, warm 
and ripe on canes, and singing with cousins 
in the loft of the hay barn—the things
we remember with different parts of our brains 
and, even in this, we are different from each other.
Plants and animals have it all over us; they’ve remained  
specialized for years, their five plus senses fine-tuned 
and sharp.  Some say we lost how to process 
our senses, or maybe we’re confused
about what they originally meant because  
somewhere down the line people learned to lie 
and cheat, which has only confused us more, 
we the younger brothers and sisters of creation. 

 
title and last line (modified) from Braiding SweetGrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, 2015.