TINY SEED LITERARY JOURNAL

Touching Wood This is not the place I thought it was coming here in disposable form impressionable as wet cement programed for success and failure in equal parts whatever fills…

Us, Protectors Chain unchained Field afar Run hard mother daughter father The aroma of sweat and fear Mingles and clashes With the alpine odor of the wooded keep Demons on…

Looking Down We’re supposed to look up and marvel at the soaring treetops, lofty branches reaching to the heavens – a vaulted cathedral ceiling. I look down and find miracles…

Easter Morning Forgive me, dear friends and family, for not being at church this morning. I was attending seven o’clock service in the chapel of the woods. Likely you haven’t…

Understory Some people walk into the forest and look up into the canopy through the dappled sunlight as it blinks behind the leaves. But when I walk into the woods…

wild ways a generous mother she is in her womb, an infinite beat conceived, birthed, and nurtured crawls, strolls, feathers in flight inhaling her exhale draped in a tamed skin…

A Winter Migration The pine siskins have come south and evening grosbeaks east. I wait for an appearance at our feeders as I have waited for tundra swans near the…

Westmoreland Co. Dogwood And on our left there was Dogwood in full bloom - with it’s white petals flowering in their usual bountiful outward expansion. We drove up the hill…

To Be Seen Outside my back windows are Douglas fir trees. So familiar, I call them friends. Tall, steadfast, and strong with a tinge of whimsical Revealed when their limbs…

Survivor Smoldering air presses on my shoulders Smoke lingers, lungs labor Eyes water, I stumble among Charred remains of broadleaf forest Snap, crack, vibrations radiate up my legs I lament…

If I Could know each thing, the inside of it, what name each thing desires, why trees give forests soft floors, by what means mycelia—pale filaments of life tunneling in…

It is your looking into my face ... That calms my spirits; is it your grace? How does your eye upon your leaf, Instill in me that sense of relief?…

Sylvan Bliss Passage to a primeval reality Offering freshen and vitality To the world worn mind Wisdom and balm to those inclined Rambling in the kingdom sylvan Freedom and connections…

Eyes, brain, nerves, frazzled from staring at black squares on a blue flickering screen for the past 9 months. Barren. The forest, not far, calls to me: Come. Bathe in…

My initials, name, and payment prove I own it, this steep hill thick with laurel, pine, and logs. Covenants say I may float a dock, let it stretch in murky,…

Someday I hope to be as soft and silent as this sleeping owl on its red branch. My dreams of sharp nights and claws surrounded by green leaves. Poem and…

We had come by the boxwood too often in November for me to think it was coincidence, my father’s reluctance to move forward on the trail and eagerness to stand…

  Poem by Marianne Mersereau. Marianne Mersereau is a poet, mystic and tree-hugger who grew up in the forested hills of Appalachia. She currently resides among the mist-covered evergreens of…

On this day you are one and the same that poet who won’t change his life and thinks he can change another’s who grinds away at the trunk of a…

Evening comes with chattering squirrels, a cardinal turned black at dusk, his voice a sharp crimson note in my dim forest. Foraging armadillos are abroad in leaf litter. Snuffling. High-pitched…

Balsam firs tower above. Shaded below, the stream pours over boulders, rocks, downed logs and pebbles. My poor toes—wading barefoot, gingerly, cringing, ouch! oooh! ow! I wish for the callused…

So far, we have only theories for why some dead, paper-thin leaves cling to branches long after all their chlorophyll is gone Pale and dry as old coffee filters I…

Poem by Duane L. Herrmann Duane L. Herrmann, internationally published, award-winning poet and historian, has seven collections of poetry and a sci fi novel: Escape from Earth. His poetry has…

In the soft light of the winter start, down the frost covered and weary trail, my eyes glimpse striking shadows and forms, with final autumn breathes they stretch, tall and…