Daylight on a Summer Branch*
June 9, 2011
2011 Merit Award
By Ruby Powers, 3rd grade
Daylight on a Summer Branch
Shining dazzling green
Like a turtle’s back
Wet with dew
Mother Nature’s magnifying glass
The branch’s needles weave and bend
Tickling my hand
Make me have
Warm fun thoughts
The dew is now evaporated
but is still here, still here, still here
somewhere.
*Copyright 2011 by Ruby Powers. Photos by Karee Wardrop.
Contest judges, Stan Tag and Maria McLeod, watching Ruby read her poem
Books on Trees*
June 7, 2011
2011 Merit Award
By Kevin Murphy
Books on Trees
Never believe what a book says
about a tree
because books are made
of dead trees and the dead
are jealous of the living
and do not describe them
objectively.
Books on geology
are more reliable
although the origins of the ink
create cause for concern.
*Copyright 2011 by Kevin Murphy. Photo by Karee Wardrop.
January View*
June 1, 2011
2011 Merit Award
By Linda Conroy
January View
From my window, naked trees
crossing branches weaving high
dripping rain on dipping bough.
Red and grey and brown and amber.
Blacker bark and lighter limb.
Green cedars hanging silent now
with not a wisp or lick of wind.
Ferns still flourish, fronds spread wide.
Wet brushwood lies on sodden ground
where mud from last year’s leaves
surrounds bare saplings, rising in the air,
but not a bird sings anywhere.
*Copyright 2011 by Linda Conroy. Placard design by Egress Studio.
The trees*
May 30, 2011
2011 Merit Award
By McKeahan Carlton, 4th grade
The trees
Chain saws buzz.
Noisy trucks plow through the
Muddy road kicking up dirt.
The green trees sway in the summer day
Hot like an engine.
The tree claps on to the ground
branches bent
tree trunks dented.
Sits there moping
Then boom another tree falls.
Then the trees aren’t so lonely.
*Copyright 2011 by McKeahan Carlton. Photo by Nancy Canyon.
Like this:
Natural Communication
March 15, 2011
2010 Walk Award winner Evan Ingalls reads his poem, Natural Communication, which can also be read here. Special thanks to Bellingham TV 10 (BTV10).
On Heliotrope Trail*
November 23, 2010
By Devan Schwartz
2010 Walk Award
*Copyright 2010 by Devan Schwartz. This poem, which can also be read here, appears in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.
The Storm*
November 9, 2010
2008 Merit Award
By Rob Macdonald, 9th grade
The calm before the Storm, suspense and fright;
A weightless giant creeps ever nearer,
It masks the sky and darkens every light.
The wind begins to howl, trees shake with fear.
The Storm ere long descends on land and sea,
Relentless forces tearing without end.
The things with little grasp will try to flee,
Their roots run thin, they crash, too weak to fend.
The calm draws near, and air lies down in ease,
The dark clouds gone; the blue is at a norm.
And all that is left standing are the trees
Whose roots drive deep to resist the strong Storm.
Though light of day maintains the Storm revealed,
The veil of night will keep it long concealed.
*Copyright 2008 by Rob Macdonald. This poem is included in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.
Natural Communication*
October 10, 2010
2010 Walk Award
By Evan Ingalls, 12th grade
*Copyright 2010 by Evan Ingalls. This poem, which can be read in full here, appears in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book! Placard design by Egress Studio.
Natural Communication*
July 6, 2010
2010 Walk Award
Natural Communication
By Evan Ingalls, 12th grade
It is all a dream.
The ash tree says nothing to the birch, yet
they both conspire to wave their arms to
the same rhythm in the wind, and to
shed their tiny parasols
at the same time in winter,
becoming nothing but a pair of souls
lost until spring, or a bare perch
for a weary winged traveler.
It is all more than I can understand.
The way the bear knows to make its bed
at the right time for its long slumber,
the way the squirrel gathers what it can and
hides it away somewhere,
and after the snow knows where to find it
in the moss-strewn ground.
It is all more than it seems.
Perhaps the sow bug and the beetle
murmur to each other as they pass in the garden.
Maybe the flowers wait until we walk by
to turn their heads away from the sun
and converse amongst themselves.
And maybe, just maybe,
the ash tree and the birch exchange a few words
with a rustle of branches in the night.
*Copyright 2010 by Evan Ingalls. This poem appears in POETRY WALK: Sue C. Boynton Poetry Contest – The First Five Years. Info: Book!
