The land is throwing me off
even as I cling to her

Grow up, she says, I’m not your mother
Stop that borrowed gender

Still, I can follow the row of hills

a duckling imprinting
on a robot duck (can happen)

but the land is alive more ways
than me, so I must be the robot

following the real mothers
who are multitudes of all genders
like casuarinas, lichen, turtles
ants, yams, outcrops
still water, sparks, coals

I watch and machine learn
I cry ugly duckling tears about
my system,
excuses

The lands have their real children
They look beyond me, shrug

I fall down a hillside
gaze back in need and love
with my constructed eyes

I study the multitudes to pass on
when I grow up and have
robot ducklings of my own