Natural History Tell me the world. Here comes light, unspoken. Light hooks a claw on the horizon, pulls itself into view. Here comes water, saline, scattering single-celled organisms. Land is a puppet. It climbs hydrothermal vents like stairs. Lava congeals. Land rises.

Here comes land, hand-springing out of water. Wind is a comma, pausing the day. At night, wind kicks its legs. What about multi-celled life? What about invertebrates and vertebrates? Tell me evolution. Tell me old growth forests. Tell me a rainbow. Tell me blue-tailed skinks. Here comes science, explaining eyeballs.

Look, here come the stars. Here comes a commuter train, hopping the rails and crashing into an empty sidewalk at 2:30 in the morning. Here come sparklers. Use them to trace letters of light in the darkness. Here comes someone's childhood cat. Here comes a paper about George Washington, complete with colored pencil illustrations of his many sets of false teeth. Tell me bourgeois glass lanterns strung from a live oak. Tell me a graveyard bigger than its town.

Please understand I mean no harm. Hold the phone. Here comes Tina, hand-springing across the backyard. Here comes a tent. Wind boxes its nylon sides, scaring the children, their sleeping bags unfurled and arranged like daisy petals. Tell me a flashlight.