seasons

Personal Narrative·Caden Wang, age 12 — Four brief meditations capture moments in different outdoor spaces — a forest path, tennis court, porch, and window view — through precise sensory observation.

Poetry·Amity Doyle, age 11 — A year cycles through in verse, each month captured in its own stanza with sensory details of weather, nature, and seasonal rituals.

Poetry·Avery DiBella, age 10 — Snow falls like a skydiver, melts like ice cream, disappears like a sad song, but promises to return in winter.

Poetry·Olivia Wang, age 10 — A sonnet celebrating nature's cycles through sensory images of water, wildlife, and seasonal changes, from sunset to sunrise, rain to bloom.

Oak

Poetry·Graham TerBeek, age 10 — An oak tree discovers purpose through seasons of loss and renewal, finding meaning not in being special but in providing shade, shelter, and friendship.

Elk

Poetry·Cecilia Appel, age 13 — An elk wades through winter snow and calls to the sky, promising that spring will return to transform the frozen landscape.

Poetry·Alyssa Wu, age 13 — Spring rain nurtures seeds into buds, then plum blossoms that sway with silent beauty in the wind.

Personal Narrative·Claire Jiang, age 12 — A girl contemplates the unnamed plants around her house, finding in their seasonal color changes a mirror for her own shifting moods.

Poetry·Liv Baker, age 11 — A sensory catalog poem moves from mountain drives through rain showers to skiing, capturing moments of calm through specific smells and textures.

Story·Rachael Ding, age 13 — A girl grows from child to grandmother, repeatedly passing an old woman who rakes leaves through the seasons, only recognizing her absence when it's too late.