Tag: nature (Page 1 of 9)

closeup of white duck down — Photo by Jude Infantini on Unsplash

Just Another Ordinary Magical Day

1 September 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Barbara Wiedemann

In the month of June in Moab
the temperature easily reaches ninety-five.

But in the nearby La Sal Mountains
it’s cooler, maybe seventies.

But still it’s a surprise to see inches
of freshly fallen snow on the tree-shaded trail.

The fluff floats down from the aspens
so buoyant, balancing in the air

like dust motes or snowflakes
before gently touching the ground

joining the white already there—
like snow only not snow

but tiny seeds transported by cottony fluff.

After a career in academia, Barbara Wiedemann, the author of Following the Snow Leopard (Kelsay Books, 2005) and four poetry chapbooks, spends summers living in her van in the mountains of the West, her only companion her energetic blue heeler. Her poems focus on the natural world.

white and yellow daffodils on mountainside — Photo by Laila on Unsplash

Airy Kiss

1 September 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Diane Bier

We will meet you at the mountain top—
where the eagles soar and the hawks land—
the land the ravens know. Unearthing the trail
beneath the dogwood trees—we’ll follow
their petals on the wind. We watch for black
squirrels and red foxes, gather daffodils,
tumble over heart rocks, all signs of you.
We climb, your mom with, a long processional—
backpacking a picnic feast and all the dogs you
never met so you can kiss them one by one.
Stumbling over words, breathless prayers fade—
like ombre butterflies releasing sorrow.
You bestow an airy kiss as we stand
greeting you with daffodils hand in hand.

Diane Bier is a binge reader who always has a book or camera in hand. She has an MFA from William Paterson University where her writing reflects her passion for social change. She resides in NJ with her family and dog where she enjoys gardening and walking.

blue herons

1 September 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Rose Brightree

this river is scented by its mother
the sea
salt water running upstream
coming to meet it halfway

out of this reunion arise
two blue herons
wearing the sky
on loosened wings

legs floating in midair
like a dancer’s
orange-lily beaks lifted
to the rising sun
gamboge eyes that see the way
light does touching what cannot be touched
any other way the tips of mountains
flight of water that is a
cloud

and as they raise themselves
to the high winds that will
carry them
as their bodies join the far-flung distance unfurling
its wide blue wings
i know they continue to teach me
how to live

Rose Brightree is a poet, artist, classical musician, and passionate nature lover and supporter. Her poetry has appeared in Room Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, Sistersong: Women Across Cultures, Other Voices, the anthologies Revelation and Winners’ Circle (Canadian Authors Association), and in other print and online publications.

a blue seahorse floating underwater — Photo by Gary Walker-Jones on Unsplash

Holdfast

1 September 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Amy Nash

I wish I could be there for the seahorse
when she growls.
Build a coral cave for privacy

when she and her future mate begin to click.
I wish I could propel myself
slowly through eelgrass beds

and sing of sunken nights as I reach the next
stratified layer in the water column
without choking on the wait.

Amy Nash has lived in every northern state between Massachusetts and Minnesota (except for Wisconsin and Michigan), resulting in brackish poetry that mixes the Mississippi River with the Great Lakes, Atlantic Ocean, and everything between. Her poems have appeared in a range of journals and anthologies.

ants on a stick — Photo by Prabir Kashyap on Unsplash

Mob

1 September 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Irena Praitis

I can’t see what’s at the core of it—all the wriggling lines,

characters massed around this point. Was it once

alive, pinned to concrete, stuck now, in the light, or a

splotch, the dark wedge in a green sea of dripped

mint-chip cone, the sugary life blood so compelling

as to draw this group core-ward, to inspire their energetic

massing, their ganging up, piling on, stripping it

down together, fire, fire, fire— the text gone viral,

gather, tear, spray your poisons, the compassion nowhere

to be seen, the drive to feed running free?

There are 2.5 million ants for each human, an

estimated 20 quadrillion—there are 20,000 trillions in 20

quadrillion.

We could stomp and spray and fumigate and not

decrease our per capita of ants by much.

Still, their numbers and those of other insects now

decline. Even in the quadrillions, you don’t always

have it your own way.

Irena Praitis is a professor of creative writing and literature at California State University, Fullerton. She’s currently serving as department chair. Her poems and translations have appeared in more than 100 literary journals and her most recent books are Rods and Koans and Cage of Bone.

hummingbird perched on a limb — Photo by Iesha Reyes on Unsplash

As a Hummingbird

30 August 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Emily Persichetti Schuster

I saw you today
With my first breath of canyon air
You were there

Meandering down the wide gravel path
I saw you as ferns
Edging against the trail

Gazing up at the brilliant cloudless sky
I saw you as a row of evergreens
Lining the rim of the canyon

As the river guided our hike
I saw you as the sparkling stream
Skipping over rocks on the valley floor

The softness of water shaping the valley
With years of patient persistence
Forgiving firmness

And I knew then this is where you belong
I wondered if you’d ever had a chance
To visit this heavenly place

Later, as the sun dipped behind the mountains
I saw you as columbines
Growing straight out of the cliff faces

Taking root in rock
Until I realized you were still the river
And those flowers were me

And I knew then I was here because of you
That so much of who I am still holds pieces of you
Guiding a path I can’t always see

You even came home with us that night
And perched in a tree in the backyard
As a hummingbird

Posted in the highest branch
Watching over my little boy
As he played on the slide and the swings

Emily Persichetti Schuster’s poetry and short fiction is published in Beautiful and Terrifying: Tales and Visions from the Edge of the Uncanny (Elderfly Press, 2026) and is forthcoming in Allium, A Journal of Poetry & Prose. She lives in Athens, Georgia with her partner and their two kids. Find her on Instagram: @empschuster_creative.

red and white toad lily — Photo by Alexis Turpin on Unsplash

Poisonous Beauty – a villanelle

1 August 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Sarah Das Gupta

Hidden in the shadow here
The foxgloves stand tall and proud
Yet they are plants to fear

Monkshood thrives in the garden near
Its blue head is humbly bowed
Hidden in the shadow here.

Daffodils harbingers so dear
Glorious yellow springtime cloud
Yet they are plants to fear.

Tiny lilies with perfume clear
As pure and white as any shroud
Hidden in the shadow here.

Autumn crocus flourish by the weir
Pale mauve candles in a crowd
Yet they are plants to fear.

Blooms loved throughout the year
Praised in songs and chorus loud
Hidden in the shadow here
Yet they are plants to fear.

Sarah Das Gupta is a writer from near Cambridge, who is interested in history and often uses historical background for fiction or poetry. She is also interested in the folklore of Eastern UK. She has been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart, and a Dwarf Star.

Joy

4 June 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Alexandra Newton Rios

As the sun sets red behind river birch, oak and elm
still copper and yellow only across their crowns
and the sky opens its spaces
I thank God for my legs,
for my eyes, for my heart
that still cross distances and open them
still feel sorrow
and have turned to transform
it into joy over and over –
as the day knows how to depart
and return full of possibility
over and over
as love knows how to forgive and rejoice
over and over.

Alexandra Newton Rios was raised in New York City, holds an MFA in English from the Writers’ Workshop and MFA in Translation in Comp. Lit. (University of Iowa). Nueva York Poetry Press recently published Poemas de Georgia/The Georgia Poems, one long poem to Georgia O’Keeffe. Mother of five children, she ran the New York City marathon in November 2025!

Morning at the Marsh

1 June 2026 / Editor

Nonfiction by Susan Pope

In early May at the shorebird festival in Homer, Alaska, I was invited to read my goshawk attack story at the site where it happened. Since the assailants were not yet nesting, I felt safe from any potential assault.

The event was a fundraiser for the land trust that had rescued a piece of forest and wetlands from bulldozing for development. Here was an opportunity to support a cause I believed in, plus a chance to plug my new book. Birding, hiking, storytelling, snacks. A perfect fundraiser. Local merchants donated food, the trust handled the logistics, the festival advertised the event, my friend Nancy provided bird identification assistance, and my husband Jim supplied the moral support. All I had to do was show up at the trail head, hike to the viewing platform, and read for ten minutes.

I visualized. I timed. I practiced out loud.

I was ready.

But not for leading the hike because the official leader, having no childcare, was forced to bring up the rear with her squealing, squirming toddler. Or for the frequent stops and starts to accommodate the grandma who thought she had signed up for pre-school story hour and kept sprinting off the trail to capture her rubber-booted fleet-footed three-year-old dashing after squirrels. Or for the six-year-old junior birder so eager to find those birds she slammed into my heels each time we paused to listen for one.

Or for the young moose who blocked our path and would not move—despite our clapping, shouting, and pleading—until she’d devoured every last fiddlehead fern. Or for the helicopter circling overhead at the viewing platform where I was to read my story.

Or for the Wilson’s snipe punctuating the roar of the helicopter’s rotors with a furious ack, ack, ack each time I imitated the goshawk’s scream in my story. Or for the pair of Canada jays who swooped in to raid our unguarded snacks when no one was paying attention.

But none of this mattered as I shouted my story in a very non-literary way to people politely trying to listen. The sun shone, the birch and willow leaves popped open, the wrens trilled and twittered, the sandpipers, ducks, geese, and cranes frantically fed or nested or headed north, and parents and grandparents did their best to ensure that the next generation had a chance at this one unpredictable and magnificent life.

Susan Pope’s work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction Short Reads, Alaska Magazine, River Teeth Beautiful Things, and The Bluebird Word Literary Journal, among others. Her memoir Rivers and Ice follows five generations of one Alaskan family in the rapidly changing landscape of the North. She lives in Anchorage, Alaska.

Grounded

22 May 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Linda K. Allison

I was never a girl who could fly
Never one who could leap
A maple seed pirouetting in the breeze
I was not one to tumble
Head over feet
As if caught
In the frothy curl of a wave
Me, I was affixed to terra firma from the start
Planted securely with my first indignant bellow

I envied those girls
The ones who could leap and twirl
As if gravity did not exist for them
As if the rules of Newton applied to someone else

But eventually, I turned my gaze
Discovering a kaleidoscope of life
Unfolding below me
Flushes of mushrooms
Where none had stood the evening before
Appearing as if by nature’s sleight of hand
A bale of turtles
Collapsing like dominoes into a dark pond
Me, witness to their choreography
As I bend close

And so, while other girls flew,
I hovered
And now, many years later
While most who once soared have lost flight
I’ve only grown closer to the earth

Linda K. Allison is a recovering banker who lives with the love of her life among the trees in the The Woodlands, Texas. Her writing has been published in The Milk House, MoonPark Review, Pile Press, and others. Her photography has appeared in The Sun, Burningword Literary Journal and elsewhere.

Tag: nature (Page 1 of 9)

Just Another Ordinary Magical Day

Airy Kiss

blue herons

Holdfast

Mob

As a Hummingbird

Poisonous Beauty – a villanelle

Joy

Morning at the Marsh

Grounded

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