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Madingley Hall, Cambridge
Teach me:
how to feel moss when I’m thinking of dead children;
how to laugh about sticky willies when I’m thinking of dead children;
how to pick daisies (day’s-eye) when I’m thinking of dead children;
how to awe at fossils lining halls when I’m thinking of dead children.
The sap runs down the hornbeam and I think of red running their faces.
The sheep bleat in the yard and I think of them crying for their mothers.
He says punch the sequoia tree and their faces squish underneath my fist.
This country deserves
no green like this.
Cedar of Lebanon.
Chiffchaff, migrated from Africa. Goldcrest, UK’s smallest bird.
They weigh as much as three paper clips
in the NCU. 
B. Tsige is a postgraduate student at the University of Cambridge. “The class goes on a nature walk” was originally published in a different form in The Skinny Poetry Journal.
Featured image of Madingley Hall, Cambridge, by Martin Tester / Wikimedia Commons (CC By-SA 2.0).
