Creative writing students at Arrowhead Union High School in Hartland, Wisconsin, recently engaged in a project centered on seven distinct works of art. Using these pieces as inspiration, students crafted original stories, bringing their unique visions to life. Each class participated in a rigorous peer-review process to read and critique 30 of the 86 student-authored submissions. Ultimately, the students took on the role of editors to select the most intriguing pieces for publication, celebrating the diverse literary talent within our writing community.

Terri Carnell, teacher

**

​The Waves Beneath My Feet
 
Sitting on the dock of the canal, I breathe in the cool, calm air—hoping it will settle my anger. My mother, Christine, refuses to let me be a teenager and experience my youth. So every fight, every argument, every brawl, I come to the port. It soothes something in me that a person could never heal. The sea under my feet, the crisp, damp wind tickling my bare ears, and the whistle of the waves traveling through the dark, starry night give me the most sense of freedom. And suddenly, I hear a pounding voice coming from the Juliet balcony of my home
 
“Clementine!” screams my mother, breaking the silence of my self-government. I groan in annoyance, picking myself up from the pier and saying my farewell to the waves. Walking back, I hear a faint mumble in this distance. I turn my back to see the bushes rustling, as if they’re trying to escape from their roots. My curiosity gets the better of me, so I approach the rumbling bush. I can still hear my mother’s pleas for me to come home, but did I ever really care about listening to my mother?
 
“Clementine! Clementine! Come here!” the bush mutters out to me. I quietly tiptoe over to the bush, not wanting to draw attention to myself. I get closer and closer, then abruptly, a familiar face emerges from the bush.
 
“Lily?” I question with a dumbfounded expression on my face, not expecting my best friend to be hiding in my bushes this late at night. “What are you doing here? It’s so late!”
 
“I know, but you have to trust me on this one! Just follow me!” She bursts out in excitement. She grabs my wrists and yanks me near the ports. Believing in her confidence, I accompany her on whatever journey we are about to endure, as usual.
 
“Where are we going this time, Lily?” I state, unenthused and knowing. 
 
“Just have a little faith,” Lily says with a bold smirk on her face. She guides me to my habitual resting whereabouts—the port. The port has been a part of mine and Lily’s lives for as long as we can remember. In a way, the port is aging with us; her musky, faded wood that carries our feet, her green, mossy hair that flows with the current, and her limbs that stretch out to schlep us onto our boat—she was once young, like us, but oh-so long ago. As she carries our feet, Lily and I race towards the edge of the port.
 
At the very fringe, you will find a boat. This boat isn’t just like any old boat; it has been abandoned for years, so Lily and I have taken it in as our own. And so, we leap onto the boat and sit on the edge of the bow, taking in every star sleeping in the sky. We sit and bask in the moonlight for hours, talking about life, nature, what happens after we die, our biggest fears… as if we’ve never talked about these things before, but with Lily, an hour with her feels like a second. The lingering thought of going home and being screamed at by my mother is still like white noise in my mind, but I’d rather be punished for a moment of freedom. Thus, Lily and I continue to rattle on for hours, chattering about matters that could only be important to us. 
 
Rubbing my eyes as I become more exhausted by the minute, I see the sun begin to awake from her slumber. Her glowing eyes radiate warmth, and her shimmering skin, hugging me as my eyes slowly wither away. Struggling to stay awake, I rest on Lily’s shoulder, signaling that the blabbering must come to an end. As my body is overtaken by somnolence, the only thought in my head is gratitude. Grateful that I had a good friend, grateful that I got to spend time with the sea, and grateful that I had a moment of freedom.
 
Chloë Doll
 

​Wassily and the Birds
 
Wassily felt the clouds heavy on his face as he drove toward the woods and left Frieda for the last time. The staleness of the light made the horse calm and measured in his trot. Droplets of water clung together in the air, assembling for the oncoming storm. The rain would start soon, he knew, and he had said this to her as he’d loaded the cart, but her face was already damp. 

Wassily rubbed his eyes and took a sip of laudanum from a small bottle in his coat pocket. The path stretched out ahead, shadowless, and the obscene bitterness of the naked tincture made it difficult to judge the distance to the edge of the moody woods, which stood as an enormous, looming wall at the edge of the wheat field. Wassily held the reins constant and without changes in tension as the carriage rumbled over the earth, damp with the humidity. 

When the promise of bedtime was gradually replaced by an endless wait for sleep to come, he had made it a regular habit to pour a little laudanum in his nightly tea. And then he started taking some before dinner, in hopes that the relaxation would help drown out his incessant embitterment, but it only meant he needed more, later, when Frieda blew out the lamplights. 

Last night, he’d taken his usual dose and rolled on top of Frieda as she settled in bed. Unlike the undercooked potatoes she served him nightly, her body was warm and soft. The scent of the lavender in her pillow enticed him, and he used the full weight of his body to push himself inside her. After a few thrusts, he rolled off, and she turned toward the wall. It was all very tiresome. 

But this was their arrangement as man and woman, and indeed, every man was a husband and every woman, a wife. It wasn’t revolutionary. She made the tea he requested and then forgot it until it was cold; at the end of his day of work, he asked for soup, which she made in such haste that the potatoes and turnips were served underdone; she washed his underclothes well and then left them on the line in the rain – each domestic slight demanded a sliver of generosity from him in order to tolerate. And in return, Frieda had her wifely responsibility to him.

Indeed, there were men for whom no potato could ever taste as sweet as the one left slightly crunchy owing to the endearing inattentiveness of one’s beloved. But Wassily was not one of those men, and he’d stopped finding Frieda’s inattentiveness in any way endearing a long time ago, and probably she him as well, although he was never very concerned about that. 

An extra sip of laudanum the following morning helped alleviate his general state of ill humour from the previous night. Though the impact of the relief was more intoxicating than the duration, and he had begun almost to relish the arguments and moments of enmity with Frieda, as it made the abatement that much sweeter, he was overcome with the sense that he could take no more. This time, he would not come back, and as he thought this, the first few drops of rain fell, as if to mark the moment. 

The body of the woods was a fixed point in his future, and only the tree tops had any definition in the waning light. There was another village on the other side, he knew. And beyond that, another wood, and if one entered those thickets and stayed on course, there would be another village, and so on. Maybe there he could find the ease of life he imagined was meant for him. Something fresh and lively, a place he could release the heaviness in his chest and feel himself hollow, buoyant, and full of promise, just as he did when he was young. 

As the path his carriage was on narrowed toward the wood’s entrance, he looked up higher to the peaks that made up the crown of the forest, and saw a crow take flight into the last clearing of the sky, between the darkening clouds. 

He muttered to himself: 

Is a man not owed a level of peace in his own house? I give her everything, and she makes a complete mess of it. 

Tipping his head back to let the tincture seep into the flesh of his mouth and throat, he saw the crow again. It seemed to split off and become two birds, each shadowing the other, and flying in perfect synchronization. And though they flew higher and higher, they never appeared to come near the darkening storm clouds, and the farther away they flew, Wassily became aware of the terrifying vastness of the sky, and how, in life, one could go on for quite a long time and still never feel that one had arrived. 

He kept watching until he finally saw one bird fly off in a different direction from the other. He squinted in the raindrops and tried to remember if it had only been one bird when he first noticed it, or, in fact, two. The treetops were now almost directly overhead, and when his neck could no longer tolerate the weight of his puzzled, upturned head, he brought his gaze down and returned his attention to his horse and the approaching forest entrance. 

Once inside the woods, Wassily’s heart felt lighter. He pulled the horse’s reins and slowed his tired animal to a walk, both of them enjoying this buoyant, cool pocket of a darkening world. Each time he entered these woods, it was as though he could breathe again, truly and deeply, for the first time in years. His chest was a hollow and clear cave.

He continued talking to himself, partly in silence, partly aloud, as one does when one is alone in a forest.

Why do I always turn back?

The oppression of obligation. Puh. All for her. For what I’m supposed to do.

And what does she do? Lives an easy, lazy life. 

I’ll never be free of it, not unless I uproot myself.

I won’t go back this time. Once and for all, I won’t.

I’ll find a new village, a new name, a new wife. 

I’ll just disappear. 

A chattering bird-like noise drew Wassily’s attention up and into the thick of the canopy, and he looked for the crow he had seen before. A large tree stood at the edge of a clearing in the understory, and something of similar texture and colour seemed to move unnaturally within the bark.

His horse whinnied and bucked, and the cart tipped over, sending the contents and Wassily onto the root-laden forest floor. Rolling onto his back, he gazed at the slivers of light slicing through the canopy overhead. A vibration near the lower half of him drew his attention, and his eyes landed on two feet, hairy and so dirty that they seemed as embedded in the earth as the roots surrounding them. 

What, to do it all again? 

The voice that spoke was feminine, with the silvery shimmer of wind. Wassily looked up and saw two emerald-green eyes looking down at him. A creature stood over him. It had a thick mane of wavy leaf-green hair and a face that was brown, but not brown skin, or brown dirt. Rather, brown, like the colour of tree bark. Wassily held his hand up to block the slivers of light obscuring his view, and as his eyes regained their focus, he saw a wildling tree woman standing over him. 

As a boy, he’d heard the tales of wildling women. No two stories were alike. Babies who were abandoned and survived in the forest treetops, and the trees came alive and raised them. Or women thought to be witches, banished from their villages, cursed by their true nature to live forever as some strange human/plant hybrid. In these tales, the witches took all the young children they found and turned their skin into tree bark. He was forbidden from being in the forest after dark for this reason, and the stories scared him so much that it wasn’t hard to mind his mother’s rules.

Looking at the wildling woman before him, he remembered his mother. He didn’t only mind her rules because of the forest tales, or because it was what children were supposed to do, but for something else. When she was cross, she became a wild, furious tempest. He remembered even the wide-eyed shock in his father’s face when it would happen, and it was never discussed thereafter. Men were violent, women were not, and that’s the way it was.

She had green eyes with a fire-orange ring at the centre.

In the forest, there were very few shadows, and no time seemed to pass. Wassily didn’t know how long he sat there staring at her, and she at him. Finally, the windy voice came again:

To a new village. Will you go? And all again? Do it all again? 

Nah, come now, a better choice, no? There must be one? Tell me.

Wassily watched her walk – if he could call it walking – over to his horse. Roots seemed to hang off her and grip the earth as she moved, almost fluidly, like water. She reached out with her vine-like fingers and began to stroke the animal, who shifted uncomfortably in place. 

Choked with terror, he opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. 

She seemed to notice him falter and spoke again, this time louder, like a torrent of furious wind directed only at him. 

NOW! TELL ME!

The horse, startled by the noise and rage, reared up, broke free of its traces, galloped away and kept going until the sound of its hooves hitting the earth had faded into the low, indistinct hum of the woods. 

I’m…unhappy…in my home. With Frieda. 

The wildling woman’s roots loped in his direction and she came closer. Her face began to widen. 
            
Happy? In your home?
            
Wassily started crawling backward. 
            
No, unhappy. She…I’m not happy. 
            
The tree woman continued approaching. Her hair rustled in a wind that encircled only her, and her corpus began to grow and deform in all directions. With widening eyes and a maniacal smile that creaked as it spread, just like a tree branch cracking in a strong wind, she seemed to reach for him.
            
Wassily dug his fingers into the damp earth and felt very small. 
            
Please…I just want to…to breathe. I can’t breathe there. When I leave her, my chest feels lighter again. Whatever fills it…is gone.
            
The wildling woman, more arbour-like in form now, continued to approach. 
            
Breathe? Oh yes. Light chest? 

The sound of cracking tree bark increased as her smile widened to take up her entire face. Her eyes were now enormous, glowing green bulbs, bursting out of her like ripe fruits.

Please! I’ll go. Just let me go. Can’t I have a fresh start? To begin anew? 

Wassily’s back was now against a large tree. The wildling tree woman was now a wall of leaves, vines, and branches, with a raving, wild-eyed face at the center, and there was no place to go.

I heard. You didn’t say fresh. You said: A hollow and clear cave. 

Wassily felt the edge of his memory shift, as though trying to quickly solve a riddle. He hadn’t said those words aloud. 

Or, did I?

He tried to stand up, but he couldn’t seem to get his footing. He tried to move his hands up the tree behind him, to brace to stand, but couldn’t get a grip. 

However you said it, I heard it. 

The wildling woman’s face and body surrounded him now. All was dark except for the glow of her green eyes, and this time, he could see a flicker of an orange flame, right at the center. He fumbled against the tree and pushed with his legs, but he felt stuck in some kind of thick mud. He looked down and realized that he couldn’t see his feet. They were swallowed by the wet earth, being absorbed. He tried to move his arms against the tree, and as he did, he heard the same creaking sound, only this time it seemed to match his own movements. He was growing into the tree.

He found that he could struggle no longer. The wind that had encircled only the wildling woman now surrounded him as well. The smell of wet earth infused his body, and the entirety of him became a tactile expression of the permanence of the woods. The rigid roughness of the bark grew into his brain, and it became difficult to think. 

He tried to breathe and could not, because his chest gradually sank into his form and became concave, a gaping, clear hollow in the tree. 

Time passed, though it was difficult to say how much, and he didn’t see the wildling woman again. Seasons were muted within the woods, and existence held constant and without change. From where he stood, he could see through a small gap in the woods, and so far away it appeared as a dollhouse, stood the home where Frieda lived. Sometimes he thought he could see a slight shimmer in colour and knew it must have been her, coming out to hang the washing or pick vegetables. From this distance, it was difficult to make out any forgetfulness for which to fault her.

​Wassily was now a fixed point, a hollow in the forest, forever empty and clear. He watched as two crows flew once again in perfect synchronization through a clearing in the treetops. and away into the sky. His eyes grew tired and strained, and he longed for a dash of the laudanum. He tried to blink, but he couldn’t, nor could he look away from the crows. They broke their synchronized flight pattern and landed on two opposite tree branches. One spread its wings wide and emitted a warning call, a shrill siren that filled the space. It alighted from the branch and seemed to briefly hover motionless in the air before it dove like a bird of prey on its nearby mate, plunging its beak into its black-feathered chest. The crow screeched and plummeted from its perch, a plume of feathers and blood swallowed by a bank of branches. Wassily waited for the expected weak yet final thud of the corpse, but it never hit the ground. 
 
Eleanor Keisman

Eleanor Keisman is an American writer and author living in Vienna, Austria. Her poetry, essays, and short stories have appeared in Tough Crime, The Bangalore Review, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Wild Umbrella, as well as adapted for podcast in The Other Stories. Her climate fiction novella, New Animal, won the Novella Award with Broken Tribe Press and was published in August 2025.

Creative writing students at Arrowhead Union High School in Hartland, Wisconsin, recently engaged in a project centered on seven distinct works of art. Using these pieces as inspiration, students crafted original stories, bringing their unique visions to life. Each class participated in a rigorous peer-review process to read and critique 30 of the 86 student-authored submissions. Ultimately, the students took on the role of editors to select the most intriguing pieces for publication, celebrating the diverse literary talent within our writing community.

Terri Carnell, teacher

**
​
The Plumber’s Perspective
 
Liquid leaked from the rusted pipe, leaving a pool around Mario’s heavy work boots. Black oil streaked across his face in the damp heat of the New York basement. He tightened his grip on the wrench until his knuckles turned white. Beside him, a massive toilet built from green stone vibrated. “Mario, leave that drain alone,” Luigi, his brother, said, voice trembling like a snapped wire. “The landlord expects this to be fixed by noon, Luigi,” Mario grunted. He thought about the stack of overdue bills sitting on the kitchen table. If I stop now, we lose the shop. Mario ignored him and threw his arm into the swirling water. Suddenly, he was dragged towards the drain. The toilet swallowed both brothers, spinning their bodies through a tunnel of screaming wind. Their tools scattered into the darkness. 
 
They fell into a soft mound of neon grass. Above, massive chunks of land drifted through the skies like lost birds. 
 
“Where did the city go?” Luigi gasped. 
 
Still gripping his wrench, Mario stood. The air tasted colorful. This place feels alive. A small mushroom guy ran forward, eyes wide with panic.
 
“The King of Koopas snatched Princess Peach!” the creature shrieked. “He took her to the Dark Lands!”
 
Before they could even process what had just happened, a sound came from the tall grass. A dinosaur with scales the color of emerald stepped out. It let out a chirp and nudged Mario’s hand.
 
“What…is…that?” Luigi whispered, backing away.
 
“He looks like a Yoshi!” the mushroom creature explained. “He will guide you through the secret paths of the Forest of Illusion!”
 
Mario climbed onto the creature’s back. The saddle felt more natural than any chair back home. Yoshi took off, his legs pounding against the ground. Luigi climbed onto a second, yellow Yoshi, and the four of them vanished into the horizon.
 
They all ran for hours, determined to save the Princess. Eventually, they reached Soda Lake. Mario and Luigi thought they were stuck until the Yoshis leaped into the air, fluttering their legs to fly. Mario felt a stronger bond with the animal than with any machine he ever repaired.
 
They reached the edge of the Dark Lands. Stone towers rose ahead like jagged teeth. Mario felt the heat of the lava baking his skin. However, he didn’t feel fear; he felt focused. Inside the King’s room, the ground shook under a massive, spiked beast. Bowser. The King of the Koopas. Bowser swung his massive tail, smashing the floorboards into pieces. Mario dodged the attack and climbed the chains on the ceiling. With one strong kick, he shattered the bridge below. Bowser screamed as the lava consumed him. “NOOOOO!” The sound echoed through the castle. 
 
After saving the princess, the kingdom settled into a quiet hum. She took the brothers back to the meadow where they came. A swirling portal hung in the air. Beyond that portal, the grey, trash-filled streets of New York waited. Mario looked through to see the flickering street 
lights. 
 
“The path home lies before you,” Princess Peach said.
 
Luigi walked for the exit, but Mario stayed still in the grass, his hand resting on Yoshi’s snout.
 
“Go on without me, Luigi,” Mario said.
 
“You want to stay in this nightmare?” Luigi asked, mouth hanging open.
 
I choose the monsters here over the landlords back home,” Mario said.
 
Luigi stepped into the portal and vanished. The only sound in the field was silence. Picking up his heavy wrench that was lying on the ground, Mario turned towards the Mushroom Kingdom and began his journey.
​
Caleb Hicks
​

​Leda and the Swan
                                                                                                
call that a scuffle?
 
I felt the sky collapse,
nimbus muscle
crammed my mouth
 
my hair knotted
into a double squall
of solar flares.
 
he flew through me,
a comet of beaks
snapping appetite
 
shooting prehistoric
spores of flight.
I buried them
 
in my soft walls
of oil and blood,
waited, gestating.
 
time dilated
like a cervix stretching
for my rebirth.
 
now, a hollow-boned 
hybrid, my shoulder 
blades split
 
skin to hatch wing,
part girl caught
in a trap, part
 
possibility looping
in search of sisters
who’ve traded vertigo
 
for an uncommon
orbit, who know forked
lightning lets us see.
 
we chime the wind
of an astronaut’s
vision, believe
 
resurrection
is a place
where flesh can float.
 
that flustered god
forgot to peck

my eyes out.     

**

​Up Through           
 
“And the loveliest plant in the world”, a painting by Ewa Tarsia, depicts a rare flower, the Tiare apetahi, found on an island in French Polynesia. This flower has become a symbol of my journey from darkness to light.
 
Tiare apetahi
jewel of the island, 
under the “sky with soft light”
on mountains of low clouds and waterfalls,
ensconced in a shrub of glossy leaves 
sprawling outward in graceful arcs. 
 
A wisp of morning light nudges the sleeping white hand 
of the flower to open. 
Listen          for the soft cracking as the fingers unfurl. 
 
The Taire apetahi once grew in abundance 
on the plateaus of Mount Temahani
inspiring awe and wonder 
richly celebrated in legend and dance.
 
Souvenir hunters came and vandals and poachers,
plundered the treasure until of the thousands 
only twenty remained 
the rest, lost forever
to greed and careless plucking of that which did not
belong to them. Cages were built to protect the last vestiges 
of a flower that can grow in no other place on earth.
 
My own tumble into darkness is foreshadowed:
stirrings of unease, a feeling that my body doesn’t 
belong to me, a sense of doom, a struggle to focus.
I meet the dark with resistance
Why me? What have I done? 
 
The more I resist, the more I feel enclosed by the metal cage.     
I am a drifting shadow.
I do not so much fear death (indeed it holds sway)
as I fear the process
surviving minutes…seconds
each moment a slow crawl forward to what?
more darkness?
 
One night I hold hands with a star, flinging
its fierce light into the hungry face of the dark.
I gather courage from the starlight and dare to hope
that I can swing open the door of the clanging cage
and give the sinister tyrant the slip.
 
until
this bright summer afternoon a strange energy 
bubbles up in my body like bread dough rising
I sink into a chair while the yeast rises, swells and surges. 
Something has to give…
the geyser erupts.
On the floor heaving with sobs, 
ocean waves crash over me, unleashing the memory 
that’s been stirring inside me
of my innocence stolen as a young child 
a flower plucked that should have been protected
encouraged to flourish, to follow the light.
 
The arc of my spiral into darkness is complete.
I rise from the floor like a newborn calf
testing the strength of my limbs.
 
Resistance gives way to acquiescence, my first steps wobbly,
my path uncertain, but there is a path and there is dappled light, 
light enough for one step followed by another. 
I see that darkness is not my enemy, 
that it is a gentle holding, an enfolding 
cocooning me, preparing me for a shedding 
of the old skin, the parchment containing a false story
that I am unseen, unloved, unworthy.
The time has come to say hello to the dark,
embrace it as another kind of light,
a kind light that breaks open the buried seed with a soft cracking.
I see that without darkness, there can be no light.
I emerge like a butterfly out of the chrysalis,
to spread wings, float, fly and soar through skies on silken sails
ephemeral yet imbued with astounding strength 
to power through arduous migrations. 
 
Tiare Apetahi
          
I am 
tender shoot
slow emergence
from deep sleep in roiling
black earth, patient longing
through damp dormant dreams
urgent pulsation of growth, persistent
pressing upward through layers of soil.
 
I rise
lean into light
promise unfurling petal by petal
to full blossom, exquisite wild wonder.

Liz Kornelsen

This poem first appeared at The Whisky Blot.
​
Liz Kornelsen is a prairie poet living in Winnipeg MB in Treaty One Territory. She is the author of Arc of Light and Shadow: Poems with Art. She draws immense inspiration to write and paint from the diverse and astonishing facets of nature. Her work has seen the light of day in various journals including The Braided Way and The Trinity Review.

Creative writing students at Arrowhead Union High School in Hartland, Wisconsin, recently engaged in a project centered on seven distinct works of art. Using these pieces as inspiration, students crafted original stories, bringing their unique visions to life. Each class participated in a rigorous peer-review process to read and critique 30 of the 86 student-authored submissions. Ultimately, the students took on the role of editors to select the most intriguing pieces for publication, celebrating the diverse literary talent within our writing community.

Terri Carnell, teacher

**
​
​Green Ash
 
He looked out his window to the black smog in the north. Years before the sky was blue and the rivers were clear. They had both since transformed into black, charred, and lifeless colouration. Fish were dead and plants shriveled, from the glory of God to the destruction of man. There was a promise of expansion and development, but from that promise no one expected what was to happen to their forest. 
 
All but one had given up; the sight alone demotivated any response, but that one had a fire within him. His home, once in the centre of nature’s beauty, had now become a dead zone covered with factory runoff. Protecting the wild had always been his motivation, and now was its absolute necessity. First he went to the local governing body. He expected resistance from the elites, but believed that by begging and providing evidence he could turn the council against the factory and its manager. He brought with him proof of the factory’s violations of policies and evidence relating to the consequences of industrialization. He provided testimony, study after study, but for nothing. The body upheld their decision and dismissed him. 
 
The manager laughed in his office as he read the newspaper. The one man opposing him had failed to stop him. Not only that, but the body had given him authority and approval to expand beyond the small village, into the city. Stock continued to rise and shareholders gloated along with him. The city helped provide the factory with new business partners, from gas stations to grocery markets, and immense power supply to throttle production efficiency. Tree cutting and exhaust quantity both saw rises in efficiency. The manager established new locations and factories to further increase production. The lumber they had been cutting was being transported for further use, which included fuel production and construction. Trucks rolled out with lumber day and night, stuffed to the brim with once beautiful trees that had transformed into a simple market product. The trail the trucks etched in the soil seemed almost permanent. Profits only continued to climb, and market share had essentially belonged entirely to the factory. By this point, the manager even started branching out into other fields, due to the drastic drop in the value of lumber. Those new ventures expanded the devastation the factory already provided. For example, ancient rock hidden beneath the towering presence of a mountain range transformed into a quarry designed to extract it for profit.
 
The environmentalist desperately tried to stop the factory. He continued to appeal his decision, but by the time he was finally successful, in the highest level of the judiciary system, the entire forest that he had called home for decades was gone. All that remained was stumps, polluted rivers, and the quiet presence of what once was.
 
Luke Moseler
 
**
 
Lost and Found
 
In this modern world, technology is truly a life saver because without the GPS no one would know how to get anywhere. At least that’s what they were all thinking as they were rushing to get to the wedding. The four cousins—Mindy, Tara, Chase, and Leo—had convinced their parents to let them drive part of the way, arguing they knew the shortcuts. Everything had been going smoothly until the GPS suddenly flickered and went blank. 
 
“Wait, it’s not working!” Tara exclaimed, starting to panic. Leo glanced out the window and frowned. Minutes later, they realized they were hopelessly lost. 
 
The road ahead of them twisted into a dense forest they hadn’t noticed on the map, sunlight filtering in through the canopy of trees. Tall, straight tree trunks lined both sides of the road, some chopped, and some not. The grass underfoot was a rich, vibrant green that almost seemed unreal. 
 
“Should we stop and see where it goes?” Mindy asked. The sky slowly darkened around them, but in this area it seemed brighter. One by one, they stepped out of the car onto the lush grass beneath them. 
 
The air smelled like earth and pine. The forest was quiet, silent except for the occasional chirping of birds or rustling of leaves. As they walked together down the path, something caught their eye. It was a small tennis ball, half-buried in the dirt, the initials A.R. faintly scratched onto the surface. It lies next to a cracked watch, a tattered photograph, and a tiny dog toy. Each object seemed like a clue from someone else’s life, small pieces of a story frozen in time. Tucked under an old pile of leaves, they found a tattered map. 
 
It was hand drawn, creased at the edges, and the lines of paths and streams were sketched carefully across it. The cousins gathered around, tracing the paths with their fingers. This map stretched over into the next town as well! It wasn’t a GPS, but it would have to do. Following the map, they retraced their steps through the forest, careful not to disturb anything else. As they stepped back onto the open road, the sun was dipping low behind the trees. It hadn’t been the wedding that filled that afternoon, but rather a series of odds and ends. Tennis balls, watches, photographs, and dog toys were seemingly ordinary objects, and yet they had all carried something extraordinary. 
 
As they climbed back into the car, Mindy nudged the GPS screen again. “Maybe it’s working now?” she said hopefully. 
 
Tara hesitantly tapped a few buttons, and the device lit up. “Wait…It was showing us this whole time?” Leo said. The map on the GPS had simply autozoomed into the forest, and all they needed to do was zoom up to see all the roads around them. The cousins all burst into laughter, but then Tara realized something.
 
“These roads are the same as the ones on the map!” she exclaimed. Mindy shrugged. “Then let’s just use the map. Why not?” she said.
 
They carefully followed the hand drawn map, steering through the turns they had memorized, ignoring the GPS beside them. By the time they reached the main road, they hadn’t needed the GPS at all. All they needed was an old, worn map to lead them through. 
 
Mekenna Verhagen
 
**

Unthreaded Earth, Inspired 
 
The saws have gone silent. The people loaded their iron teeth into trucks and left the mud to settle. They took the giants. The tall, sturdy, valuable ones. They looked at me: crooked, thin, and frayed. Deciding I wasn't worth the fuel to slash. Now, left vertical in this horizontal world, a lone needle stitching the broken earth to the heavy sky. 
 
Without the canopying timber, the sky has turned into an indigo flood. It doesn't feel like air anymore, but water, a thick and churning current that's flooded the valley I stand in. There used to be a ceiling of green lace to hold the weight back, branches acting as a shield to keep the pressure off my head. But the shield has broken. Now there is only this blue weight. I have to grip the mud with my roots just to keep myself upright, feeling the soil underneath me pulling at my base, trying to drag me down into the rest of the terrain. 
 
The silence left behind is unfamiliar. Even the wind feels lost in this deserted valley.
It wanders without direction through the clearing, slipping past me, brushing over the stumps like it searches for something that isn't there anymore. Once, it used to move swiftly through crowded branches. Leaves rustled, gaps whistled. Now, it rushes freely, making me sway as it tugs at my crooked limb. The emptiness makes the blow deafening. The ground beneath me is hollow where roots once tangled with mine. 
 
Clouds begin to gather, hovering above me – heavy and low. The indigo sky starts to thicken. The wind grows stronger pushing against my trunk. I lean slightly creaking as I try to stay upright. Then the rain starts suddenly. It strikes the exposed earth, splashing against the stumps and filling the deep tracks left behind from the trucks. When the rain falls the soil moves faster than before. The mud pulls at me, slowly loosening my grip and the valley doesn't hold me the same way it once did. Water rushes past my roots. Wind presses harder, bending me further than before. 
 
I try to hold. The mud shifts. The wind roars across the clearing that's no longer blocked by branches. I tilt further and further, my trunk groaning and splinting. The surface beneath me gives away and I begin to fall. Crack. My world turns sideways, the sky rushes past me. For a moment I hang between the standing and the fallen. I collapse. 
 
The impact was quiet, unexciting compared to the giants. I lie still, my bark pressed against the wet ground. Now, the rain taps my side and the wind moves over me instead of through me. For the first time I am horizontal like the rest of the valley. I stare up at the indigo ceiling. It still feels heavy but I no longer feel I have to hold myself up. The rain continues gently now, pooling in the hollow beneath my roots. At first it's just a trickle but with every passing hour it grows, carving a narrow stream underneath me. The mud continues to soften around me, allowing the water to flow freely carrying the leaves and pebbles with it. I start to realize I am no longer just a fallen tree but a bridge. Now I tie the broken earth together.
 
Suddenly I feel a paw step onto my trunk. A rabbit, cautious it pauses, sniffing my bark and the air around me. It then presses forward trusting me to hold it above the current. Birds follow, hopping along my splintered branches. Their wings brushing gently along my side as they land. Even a deer comes, heavy and careful it steps slowly across me. I hold them steady. 
 
The wind moves differently now, not against me but around me, lifting leaves into the current below me and guiding the creatures that pass across me. I am no longer a needle stitching the earth to the sky. I am a path, a bridge across the broken valley. I hold movement and life trusts me to stay in place, to connect what was torn apart. The sky lightens slowly and the indigo sky fades into gray and then a pale gold. The stream glimmers beneath me against the sun and the mud presses gently against my roots holding me firmly. 
 
I am horizontal now, but my purpose is noticed. I have become something the valley needs, replacing the giants that served a different purpose. I carry the creature across what was once hollow and lost. I am necessary. I have a purpose.

Myah Boone

**

The Origin of the Magnolia 
 
It was dead silent in the forest. Not even the wind dared to make noise. But out from the bushes popped the head of a deer. It crept into view and moved over to the strange forest beings. “Hello, little friend,” one said to the deer. They were both out looking for the same thing: berries. It was usually very peaceful in the forest of the Dryads, but lately they had been getting a strange feeling of something soon to arrive. 
 
The elders who, usually just taught the children, were preparing for something, something they didn’t speak to the others about. The rest of the Dryads began to feel uneasy. Yet they tried to act as if nothing was happening so as to not scare the children. 
 
The next day when Silva and Oreiades went to look for berries again, there were no animals in sight. “Where did all the creatures go?” asked Silva, “And what's that strange noise off in the distance?” Oreiades just looked at her in concern and confusion. Something wasn’t right. 
 
They decided to go back and tell the elders. Once they told the elders, they got told to gather the rest of the Dryads and start training. “Start training for what?” asked Oreiades. 
 
“The worst case scenario,” answered one of the elders, “destruction of another world that we have only heard stories about.” The elders led them to a secret cave hidden behind a large weeping willow tree. 
 
Inside the cave were bows, arrows, spears, swords, and shields. The Dryads knew there was no time for questions, they had to start preparing for war. They appointed Oreiades as their general. For the next two days the forest was filled with the wisping of arrows and clamoring of swords.
 
Once those two days had passed, the day came where they could hear a loud noise coming from deep in the forest somewhat close to them. It was time.
 
All the Dryads, except for the elders who stayed behind with the children, gathered their weapons and headed for the noise. Silva and Oreiades looked at each in shock when they finally got eyes on these destructive beings. “What are they?” asked Oreiades.
 
“I’ve never seen anything like them,” returned Silva. “They are like us but their skin is pale and they destroy everything they touch.” 
 
They were instructed to wait in the bushes until the evil creatures approached them. Once it was time, Oreiades would give out a deafening cry and all the Dryads would attack at once. The beings with pale skin were quick when it came to destruction. And after a few minutes it was time to attack. 
The pale skin creatures didn’t react fast enough and their entire front line was instantly wiped out, but there were many more to go. The Dryad army only had around one hundred and forty soldiers, and the pale skin creatures had roughly doubled with what looked to be three hundred. 
 
These destructive creatures, armed with machetes and spears, fought with incredible strength, but it was sloppy. They had no control. However the Dryads lacked the strength but made up for it with control. The archers could shoot arrows through the smallest gaps of armors and the spears could pierce them too. The swords moved with incredible maneuverability, slicing everything in its path.
 
“We’ve lost twenty of our fighters, Silva,” alarmed Oreiades.
 
“But we’ve slain half of them,” responded Silva.
 
The bodies kept stacking higher and higher and the floor became blood soaked. A tough battle was fought and many died that day. The forest was saved in the end but not without a cost. The pale skin creatures learned fast and they adapted to the Dryads’ tactics. Three quarters of the Dryads were slain in that battle. 
 
They returned to the elders with heavy hearts and crowded minds. The forest was safe again and the animals returned, but the forest knew that some of the Dryads were missing. And so where that battle took place was where the first Magnolia tree was born.

Solomon Kalusche

**

What They Leave Behind  
 
It all begins with leaves of deep sage and a damp, chilling breeze. Just as it always has. 
 
Forests surround me as far as the eye can see, and thick tree trunks obscure any sight of an exit. I flick my ear as I slink along the soil, careful to step over bits and pieces of shattered glass from a time long before my own. A second passes, a minute, and finally an hour before I spot a faint blue glow in the distance. My tail billows behind me like a slow cloud of smoke, smoothing and thinning as my paws pick up into a trot. Metal cans, toys made of smudged wood, and old ragged clothes lay strewn about, long forgotten as my eyes adjust to the light. 
 
The light flickers, and gradually becomes a bright, brilliant beacon. Beyond the trees, the thick darkness that once enveloped me dissipates, revealing a clearing of little sound and even littler presence. For how silent the forest had seemed, this place seems impossibly quieter. A valley of rolling grass expands, multiplying with each step I take, and the smells of fresh rain and mud linger. I take another step forward, and within this spot of dirt lies a divot larger than the prints I left behind. Another creature was here before me, and the several tree stumps I pass as I continue only serve as further proof of this. 
 
The storm passed a few days ago, and took many of the things that had been made by these beings. Their objects washed up among those of us living in the forest, discarded as they fled their homes for higher ground. Even the most treasured of items could not be taken. The moment the shifting of clouds began, the cries of children who had been forced to abandon their toys had resounded loud enough to stand out even above the striking gale. 
 
Even so, the valley is almost completely empty. All that remains of the creatures that lived here are the dry footprints in the mud. It would appear that everything that hasn’t been washed away has been whisked somewhere safe. 
 
I feel relieved, until my paw settles on something firm. A thick board, only one in a pile that remains of a house, crackles underneath me, and I’m quick to scurry back onto the safety of the grass. From somewhere nearby, I hear a high-pitched voice. 
 
“Hello?!” They shout, their throat crackling and raw. “Is someone up there?”
 
Still startled, I nudge my snout along the side of a piece of wood. As I move another board, the light expands upon a deep hole. I peer down at the cause of the noise. Beneath the wreckage lies a human girl, her eyes wide and brimming with tears. Her tiny hands clutch an even smaller locket and chain, and she nods to answer as my focus lingers on it.
 
“It’s important. I had to go back for it.”
 
People are peculiar. Why would this girl dive into danger for something that has no practical use? She looks up to me as I extend my tail towards her, helping her back onto the ground.  Inexplicable to me, she rubs a thumb over the jewellery's gold plating and looks down to it with a warm smile, as if it had been the one to save her. I question this as she clings onto my tail once more. She’s following me now, but her eyes are still glued to the locket. 
 
She strings it around her neck. With the trinket securely resting over her heart, she looks up to a sky filled with bursts of blue as if it suddenly grew a thousand times brighter. After a moment of reverence, she continues forward, finally content to leave behind the rest of the wreckage.
 
Reagan Cabaniss
 

Toward the Blue Peninsula

A stark and uninviting space 
White wire cage against white wall 
A Prisoner alone fenced by austerity
Lonely -- perhaps-or feeling safe?
Surrounded by familiar habitat --
Bleak and bare -- and yet -- 
The window is not barred

The sky and sea invite with blended blue 
Scent of ocean breezes in
And would the Prisoner perish if she dared 
Step through that daunting window?
Maybe bribe a passing bird to go before -- explore --
And bring back news of what’s outside?
Or with unimpeded Mind -- her freer Self --
Choose to leap into Delight?

Nancy Cummins Bierman

Joseph Cornell's artwork was inspired by Emily Dickinson's poem, "It Might Be Lonelier." 
https://keytopoetry.com/emily-dickinson/poems/it-might-be-lonelier/

Nancy Cummins-Bierman is a pilgrim, poet, and singer who began writing poetry after she retired. Her poems are explorations into her relationship with nature and spirituality.  In 2025 she published her first book: Daydream with Unicorn (available on Amazon). She shares a home in suburban Littleton, Colorado with her dog and cat.  She enjoys traveling, hiking, singing in two choirs, meeting with friends, and spending time with her son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter.

​Black Square
 
Dreaming of
complete cloud collllllapse 
lapsing lyrical ruins
rico-cheting the earth 
entering into the harmony of
 
nothing
 
the nothing of beyond w/
be-graven images embossed
in our earthly skin
in our ethereal anthro-type 
remains and continuings
 
the chaindrils of mechanical eyes fail us as us they impale w/ graham-cracker light into sculpted deception
each reception of light left removing shadow’s intention of hands touching stars luminogrammed 
and listen as stars start to brush the galaxies rush beaming down crushing light over millennia left 
 
nothing
 
the nothing of beyond which
razes heavenly empires into ash
each ash-tion now must be taken 
as torrent hands drip ash castles
feel here everything awash
 
listen to the flood of nothing as it sensurrounds each daily duty
justice dispersed in our continuous life-phasing dance
daughtering coalescence of divine violence emulsion
 
this earth we carry with us
this sound we carry with us
nothing we carry with us