Poetry-Nature

  Bright moonlight fills the rainy forest. Trees’ leaves glisten with rain. The shadow of a wolf slices the white glow. His paws softly touch the damp mud. He has a place to go. The moon flickers, appears again in a crack between two treetops, {the light shining like fire.} The wolf opens his jaws, throws his head back, howls. The sound echoes through the woods. He ceases his noise. His job is finished. All around him the forest awakens. Owls’ wings beat. Rats scurry, bats squeak, foxes growl. He runs back across the mud, paced by the rhythm of his feet against the ground, and watches the black shapes of animals travel from tree to tree. He has nothing more to do. The night has come alive. Katie Turk, 11Palo Alto, CA

  I stand here, still in the open air, paused in a lawn of crisp, crackly leaves. I feel sorry they had to die. I’d feel bad to crunch. I stand still in a strangely deep sorrow. Eva Bandy, 9Quarryville, PA

  The wind teaches the bare trees how to dance The trees try but they are not agile and thrash like a beached fish I wonder why the wind does not just give up Its next lesson may be more fruitful The green leaves flutter in the wind against the bare tree I wish that the wind would teach me how to dance I wonder if I would ever be the wind’s great pupil Charlie McDermott, 13 Vienna, VA