morning

Personal Narrative·Raya Ilieva, age 10 — During California's 2020 wildfires, a girl wakes to an apocalyptic orange sky and wonders when the world will return to normal.

Poetry·Soheon Rhee, age 12 — A meditation on dishwashing becomes a portal to memory, neighborhood sounds, and the passage of time in a Korean household abroad.

Poetry·Summer Loh, age 8 — Through a fogged window, a child observes city life: a girl with her dog, a street musician, an old couple, and a flower growing through concrete cracks.

Poetry·Soheon Rhee, age 12 — Precise instructions for cleaning a hallway become a meditation on observation, revealing the quiet dignity in routine work and moments of beauty glimpsed through windows.

Poetry·Graecie Gwyn, age 9 — Rain transforms a landscape as shadows move, sun breaks through, wind flows, and trees lean toward water in a meditation on nature's interconnected movements.

Story·Maggie Shelton, age 12 — Dawn breaks over a sleeping town, awakening colors, sounds, and smells as families gather for breakfast in homes around the world.

Poetry·Esther Hay, age 8 — A morning walk through a dewy forest becomes a sensory journey as cold droplets fall from flowers and trees, chilling the narrator.

Poetry·Adele Stamenov, age 10 — A moment of anxiety dissolves into calm through the ritual of making tea, where milk clouds float in their own suspended world.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A 13-year-old observes graduation season from a Manhattan hotel, watching anxious parents at breakfast and contemplating the hidden world awaiting both graduates and herself.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A winter morning walk to art class transforms when the speaker notices the river's muddy ice, mallard, and debris become a still life waiting to be painted.