Lessons from the Wild – Tiny Seed Literary Journal

Lessons from the Wild…

Outdoor Conversations

27 Aug 202127 Aug 2021

Sky and trees touching to bend light their branches and boughs bowing to the earth as wind blows softly to a breeze of uplift and down…

Lessons from the Wild

Dance of the Hurricane

23 Apr 202111 Apr 2021

Feet slow, gentle, serene. Dance, twirling, hair flowing. Grey eye cast across the sky. Tempo slow. Anxious clouds come and go. Cautious steel worms rattle in the wind. Concrete towers,…

Lessons from the Wild…

Hummingbirds

14 Jan 202114 Jan 2021

The hummingbirds arrived in our backyard again this summer, stopping to refuel on their long flight south. We watched as they helicoptered around the feeders, hovering as if frozen in…

Lessons from the Wild

Charley The Donkey

14 Jan 20217 Jan 2021

Is a happy slice of life Who brays at six am For his breakfast and Makes sure you don’t Forget about it. It’s always a kind word From him as…

Lessons from the Wild…

Abracadabra

14 Jan 20211 Jan 2021

I stepped on a red mulberry leaf. “Ta-da” it’d crunched. We understood the alchemy of outside then, when we were kids. I enjoy outside now but have never been an…

Lessons from the Wild

Faith in Spring

13 Jan 202112 Jan 2021

after Patricia Fragnoli Poem by Connie Jordan Green. Connie Jordan Green lives on a small farm in East Tennessee. She is the author of two award-winning novels for young…

Lessons from the Wild…

Lessons from a Rock

13 Jan 202113 Jan 2021

I had a certain kinship with nature at a young age, growing up on an old farm with thirty five acres of fields and woodland. Climbing fallen trees and the…

Lessons from the Wild

Wildwood

12 Jan 202111 Jan 2021

We called them 'the woods' but truth be told they were a city forest preserve, a swath of controlled growth between highways—anemic oaks and dun evergreens, a dry creek bed…

Lessons from the Wild…

My sister kept her garden

12 Jan 20211 Jan 2021

a careful patch with squash and beans, some other stuff we grew, growing up, a handful of blueberry shrubs nurtured against a wall for those days we piled into late…

Lessons from the Wild

My Road Home

12 Jan 20217 Jan 2021

It’s soft May rain splattering the sycamore leaves outside my bedroom window; October fog sneaking into the early-morning valley before the sun comes up and roots it out. It’s grandma’s…

Lessons from the Wild…

People Still Get Polio

11 Jan 202111 Jan 2021

I discover a skinny desert path on my first morning walk in the Arizona neighborhood. The trail’s opening looks menacing in that brutal desert way, but further up the hill…

Lessons from the Wild

The Listener

11 Jan 20217 Jan 2021

AM (1 day ago) I pay little attention to the sound of falling leaves, birdsong, wind in the trees. I listen for the rising sound from the ground before I…

Lessons from the Wild…

Pretty Little Darlings

11 Jan 20218 Jan 2021

Little darling greeted me in the back yard, slender face, dark eyes, coal black hair. Seemed interested to meet me, walked forward without hesitation. I froze, unable to speak,…

Lessons from the Wild

Autumn Coda, Winter Wondering (for my teacher)

10 Jan 20219 Jan 2021

You unbolted a painted library (its glossy-white oak shelves laden with human noise bound in leather) and cracked open an eye-slit of nature: the limping hare, the iron-cold owl, and…

Lessons from the Wild…

Once in a Lifetime

9 Jan 20218 Jan 2021

Marine biologists said it would only happen once, a phenomenon, swarming of bait fish off Cape Cuvier along distant Western Australian coast. A desolate, rocky place, few got to observe…

Lessons from the Wild…

Three Answers to Any Dilemma

9 Jan 20218 Jan 2021

I. The Thunderstorm After sudden rain water rests as the puddle gathers blossoms. II. The Northern Blizzard While the howl covers a continent meek…

Lessons from the Wild

Le Futur Proche

9 Jan 20219 Jan 2021

Don’t ask me to live for a far-off future, the prospect of falling in love again or someday grandchildren. Don’t tell me to take walks every day like vitamins, so…

Lessons from the Wild

I Like You Best Without Makeup

8 Jan 20217 Jan 2021

The granite ribs and peaks of the mountain rise out of ponderosa pine. Turning from my pillow, I look over the wrinkles and ridges, unblemished crests slipping from the robe…

Lessons from the Wild…

Hold Gently the Things That You Love

8 Jan 20218 Jan 2021

Photo by Carolyn Adams Carolyn Adams’ poetry and art have been published in the pages, and on the covers of Wend Poetry Journal, Steam Ticket, Apercus Quarterly, Calyx, and…

Lessons from the Wild

Thank you

Cracked sidewalks of unincorporated Wisconsin: a woman yells at her dogs to stop barking. These are outdoor dogs with outdoor homes, ones that can stomach hours of cold. Your own…

Lessons from the Wild…

River

7 Jan 20217 Jan 2021

I thought about you today A maelstrom of lonely Stirred beneath my bones And I remembered that most Of my life was lived near the river So maybe the river…