autumn

Poetry·Clark Liu, age 9 — A child captures autumn's arrival through sound patterns, describing wool sweaters, breezy sneezes, chattering trees, and red leaves flooding streets like a stream.

Poetry·Oisin Stephens — Trees gain fiery autumn cloaks while evergreens envy their beauty, not knowing the burden it carries—a meditation on transformation and permanence.

Poetry·Enni Harlan, age 13 — A father and daughter discover a dead bird at dusk and create an impromptu funeral with autumn leaves, watching as wind carries both leaves and spirit away.

Poetry·Eva Bandy, age 9 — A child stands frozen in autumn leaves, feeling deep sorrow for their death and unable to step on them.

Poetry·Danny Musher, age 11 — A pond at dusk becomes a cradle of stillness as autumn winds rustle reeds, rushes peer at their reflections, and night settles like a soft blanket.

Poetry·Rosemary Engelfried, age 13 — A Pacific Northwest autumn storm transforms Douglas firs and ocean cliffs into a world of fog, rain, and distant waves.

Poetry·Taylor Nelsen, age 11 — A red leaf falls from a tree in autumn twilight and becomes caught in a spider's web, their patterns intertwining in the dawn light.

Poetry·Rory Lipkis, age 9 — A child walks along a canal towpath, observing nature's beauty alongside human intrusion—from dragonflies and turtles to litter and a dying fish.

Poetry·Gabriel Wainio-Theberge, age 12 — Late geese flying south become a mourning choir whose honks lament autumn's end and winter's arrival, their voices mistaken for hunting hounds.

Poetry·Gabriel Wainio-Theberge, age 12 — Autumn transforms from blazing red leaves and jack-o-lanterns to encroaching night, frost, and brittle mushrooms frozen like victims of Medusa's stare.