Tag: nature's joy (Page 1 of 2)

Wonder Makes Me More Alive

1 July 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Carolyn Chilton Casas

How is it possible two juvenile
cottontails know how to play leapfrog?
Through the window, spellbound
I watch as they run back and forth
across our lawn jumping over each other.

On the other side of the road, young alpacas
are sporting first haircuts.
Like wet cats, these animals
look so thin without their plush,
camel-colored and chocolate brown fur.
They remind me of the bendable Gumbys
we played with in grade school.

And this morning, after an early rain,
I witness vultures perched
on the tops of telephone poles
and eucalyptus trees in the distance,
wings spread wide to dry their feathers.

I can’t remember a time when my body
didn’t vibrate with curiosity.
As a young girl the woods called to me
and despite being cautioned,
I was lured to explore,
gathering birds’ nests and walnut-sized,
broken blue shells left by their babies,
digging up arrowheads,
discovering flowers I’d never before seen.

My heart holds a tenderness for living things.

To exist on this fascinating Earth
without a full measure
of reverence and wonder
would surely be a life half full.

Carolyn Chilton Casas’ poetry has appeared in journals such as Braided Way, Grateful Living, and One Earth Sangha and in anthologies including The Wonder of Small Things and Thin Spaces & Sacred Spaces. Her website is www.carolynchiltoncasas.com, and her newest book of poetry is Under the Same Sky.

More than pretty wings

1 July 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Mackenzie Kelley

Often,
when the wheel beneath me spins
faster than I can run,
I think of the butterflies, the monarchs.

Born of earth and leaves,
stayed roots and hollow stalks,
no one could guess a destiny bound in the sky.
how limbs of silk and thread, tiny masters of physics,
would some day
take reign of winds.

Sometimes,
collapsed on the floor,
a ragdoll of tired limbs,
I think of planes that master air,
fragile wings that keep company with hawks,
how millions of snowflakes together can bend trees.

of what we could learn from butterflies
if only we admired more
than pretty wings.

Mackenzie Kelley is a Virginia-based writer with a love of nature, animals, and all things wild. When not writing, Mackenzie is hiking with her dog, baking something chocolate, or cozying up with a novel.

Snow

1 January 2026 / Editor

Poetry by Aidan Russell

While in the night we soundly slept,
A winter storm came by
and covered all the world in white,
With snow banks piled high.

So in the morning we awoke
And looked out at the sight,
Of all the city buried deep,
in snow so clean and white.

We dressed ourselves and wandered out
Into that wonderland,
And sought to find ourselves some fun,
Though nothing we had planned.

In trudging down the empty street,
We saw no other soul,
And so alone we went along,
A solitary stroll.

Then at the park we found a bench,
Beneath a bare oak tree,
Where we decided then to sit,
The snow-filled world to see.

So there we sat upon the bench,
Just you and me alone,
And watched the winter world grow still,
And heard the cold wind moan.

What sacred beauty there we saw,
As flurries seemed to grow,
The world without mistake or flaw,
White blanketed with snow.

Aidan Russell is an American poet and filmmaker. He was a finalist in the Unity in Verse Poetry Contest. He is also the writer and director of a number of short films, most notably: A Criminal Misunderstanding and The Legend of John Henry. He lives in Southern California.

Kingfisher

7 June 2025 / Editor

Poetry by John Grey

A dazzle of blue
skirts the green-water pond,
merges with a fish
in its squat beak.

He is a king.
No other bird sits so squat,
so regally, on a tree branch.

And a fisher of course.
His catch is inhaled
neatly down his gullet.

He flies off
and other birds arrive
in his wake.

They land
in a wave of salutations,
in a homage
to his feathery crown.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and Tenth Muse. Latest books Subject Matters, Between Two Fires, and Covert are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White Wall Review and Cantos.

Walking with a Leaf in Winter

17 February 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Christine Andersen

I don’t know where it came from
since the tree limbs around me were bare—

the leaf was slight, brown,
jagged at the edges

like a scrap torn from
a paper bag,

but there it was beside me
drifting on a cold, slow,

February wind,
keeping pace

as if we were connected
by a slender thread,

an odd companion,
wafting,

remarkable as a sunset,
easy, debonair

falling away with a wink
too elegant for words.

Christine Andersen is a retired dyslexia specialist who hikes daily in the Connecticut woods with her five dogs, pen and pad in pocket. Publications include the Comstock, The Awakenings, New Plains and Gyroscope Reviews, Slab, and Glimpse, among others. She won the 2024 American Writers Review Poetry Contest.

Photo by Cristina Anne Costello on Unsplash

February Morning in Palm Springs

28 January 2025 / Editor

Poetry by Suzy Harris

Blue sky laced with clouds, chilly breeze.
Sometimes the sun breaks through to kiss

a cheek, a shoulder, then hides again.
Sandals and sun hat emerge from hibernation.

It is all about the light here,
how it sets the lemon tree aflame,

each lemon a small sun of tart brilliance.
Each cell dulled by winter stirs,

arises to greet the day. Day is still
getting used to these strangers,

prods the multi-celled being
we call human to watch

a hummingbird hovering the base of twin
palm trees, to notice the stalk

arising from the center of an agave,
its death bloom still tightly curled.

Suzy Harris lives in Portland, Oregon. Her poems have appeared in Clackamas Literary Review, Willawaw Journal, and Wild Greens, among other journals and anthologies. Her chapbook Listening in the Dark, about hearing loss and learning to hear again with cochlear implants, was published by The Poetry Box in February 2023.

white and black bird on brown tree branch — Photo by Chris F on Pexels.com

Golden-Crowned Kinglets

18 November 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Michael Magee

Little Golden-Crowned Kinglets in
the fir trees flash gold as leaves
in their cameo roles.

Today there was snow in the air
small patches of light that
brushed against my jacket.

What’s best? The little flash
of a Kinglet that moves so fast
it leaves behind its color.

Or this snow-fleeting day
coming out of nowhere to appear
at my side like a sunflower.

Michael Magee‘s newest collection “Shiny Things” (MoonPath Press) is coming out in January 2025. He lives in Tacoma, Washington.

footprints on snow covered ground in drone shot — Photo by Jamo Images on Pexels.com

Footwriting

1 September 2024 / Editor

Poetry by Russell Rowland

Hand it to the blank slate
of new snow—entire days could be written on it.

There’s plenty of page for me
and the child, with her closer-spaced footwriting.

If it’s a long walk we take, and we turn
to look behind, we discover
we wrote exactly that: “Love took a long walk.”

The tiny fieldmouse’s penmanship
is a fine hand, its thin tail writing a narrow line;
correct footprint punctuation—“I’m

easily overlooked, and thank you very much.”

A snowshoe hare leaves a lot of white spaces,
scrawling “Fox alert!” in haste.

Ethereal deer have a streamlined logo. It reads,
“No comment.”

Russell Rowland writes from New Hampshire’s Lakes Region, where he has judged high-school Poetry Out Loud competitions. His work appears in Except for Love: New England Poets Inspired by Donald Hall (Encircle Publications), and Covid Spring, Vol. 2 (Hobblebush Books). His latest poetry book, Magnificat, is available from Encircle Publications.

Breaking Open Joy

1 March 2023 / Editor

Poetry by Stacie Eirich

Focus the flow, let the gentle waves glide and roll,
rippling across the velvet smooth surface
of sand. Feel the wind settle gently into twilight— golden, shimmering.

Find gentle respite in the cool relief of night,
welcome the peace of nature’s sounds, night’s embrace
of sleepful solace. Listen to the nightingale’s melody— golden, shimmering.

Follow the dawn into tomorrow, unloading grief and sorrow,
stress and struggle, letting happiness in, breaking open the boundaries
for joy. See it waiting in wings of light— golden, shimmering.

Stacie Eirich is a poet, singer & mother of two. Her poems have recently appeared in Last Leaves, The Journey (Paddler Press), Synkroniciti Magazine and Valiant Scribe Literary Journal, among others. Her home is near New Orleans, La; her heart is wherever a song can be found. www.stacieeirich.com

lightning bugs

9 November 2022 / Editor

Poetry by Caroline Randall

at the park, we sit at a picnic table beneath a tree, our faces disappearing in the wane of

daylight. the night is warm with a cooling wind and the scent of distant rain, but we are here,

beneath this tree, discussing the deer across the field and the amount of people still

in the park. we speak of lightning bugs and their absence, and as if summoned,

a single lightning bug glowed, then another, and another until I lost count of their

individual orbs, and i thought,

what kind of magic is this?

that led me beneath this tree?

that brought me to you?

Caroline Randall is a writer and painter living in Louisville, Kentucky. She holds an MFA and a BFA in creative writing from California College of the Arts and Spalding University, respectively. She currently proofs and edits court transcripts for a living.