[In addition to the poems featured in our chapbook, we are pleased to present work from Indiana writers on the Human/Nature theme.
Read more about the chapbook here.]
Honeymoon in the Marble Mountain Wilderness
It takes a day to get used to the backcountry
Beauty in the daylight becomes ancient fear as darkness settles
Hunting time for the wild distant ancestors
Why does each falling branch and unknown sound bring fear?
We lived in the woods and with the woods for centuries
Fear of the unknown is in every human in one manner or another
Like most everything, experience brings comfort, and eventually joy
Experience in the woods takes us back to our roots in the wild
-Kirby Lee Hammel.
The Pull of Big Sur
The road was closed at Gorda
But we didn’t care
There may not be a better place to sit and stare
Looking for whales high up on the trail
You said it's perfect, I said it’s Eden
Treetops we can’t see
Worlds up there we’ve yet to explore
Oh, to spend a precious moment in the Redwood canopy
Ageless, unceasing waves
Crashing for eternity, crashing from eternity
-Kirby Lee Hammel.
Back to Human/Nature writing.
Read more about the Human/Nature chapbook here.