connection to nature

Poetry·Teddy Lykouretzos, age 13 — A young poet compares plastic's permanence to the pyramids, warning that our disposable creations outlast monuments while poisoning the earth we depend on.

Story·Olivia Ladell, age 13 — After Earth's population flees to Mars, an eight-year-old boy is accidentally left behind. Eight years later, on his sixteenth birthday, he discovers another forgotten teenager.

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.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A girl and her father venture into woods to craft a bow and arrows from oak branches, shooting them into the star-filled evening sky.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — Morning fog lifts as blackbirds sing and a coyote chases a dog, leaving the speaker wondering who cleared the fog away.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A walk on a grey path reveals falling snow alongside violence and grief, prompting wonder at snow's peaceful clarity amid human suffering.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A young traveler contrasts swimming in the stormy Pacific and touching dead jellyfish with glimpses of urban decay seen from a bus window in a Chilean coastal city.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A prose poem captures running with a silver poodle by the ocean, where salt air mingles with thoughts of politics and stars emerge from boredom.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — Old tennis racquets on a wall become a meditation on family members who have passed, their souls imagined playing on star-paved courts.

Poetry·Tatiana Rebecca Shrayer, age 13 — A young poet traces Dostoevsky's footsteps through his former spaces, feeling his presence in stairs, doors, and pages as a white night falls on St. Petersburg.