Take the Shot (WINNER, JUDGES’ PICK)

By Jamie Gregory

Early morning sunlight filters through tangerine-colored maple leaves, warming my face. I rest my head on Papaw’s steadfast shoulder. Chickadees and warblers serenade the forest with their reveille. I drift into a soft slumber. 

Crack.

A snapping twig lurches me awake.

“There,” Papaw whispers. “This is your chance kiddo, take the shot.”

The buck freezes, head lowered, and sniffs our scent. He raises his majestic antlers to meet my stare. I search his amber eyes for signs of weakness and find only valor.

Steady hands. Exhale. Press the shutter.

A Family Resemblance (RUNNER UP, JUDGES’ PICK)

By Megan Riley

First, the bat in Grandad’s basement. Pinned by leathery wings: a veritable crucifixion.  

“Boys will be boys,” she said through a wrinkled nose as she scooped the organs back inside its gaping chest and popped the pins back into her sewing box.  

Next, the neighbour’s cat, Gertie. Soft ginger fur squashed flat; tenderised.  

“Always such a racket,” she said rinsing away the suds and placing the meat mallet back in the  drawer. “Everyone has limits.” 

After, sights set on larger game. Traipsing upstairs, hand in hand. 

“Like father like son,” she sighed, volume up. “It’s just in his nature.”

Mother Nature

By Katrina Moinet

Sudden ripening – you – growing faster than the speed

of a lightening load as working-caring-mother-ego

child-centric conversations strike chords

echoes of all my errors:

All I ever did was feed you

at least it felt that way

All I ever did was clean you, clothe you

at least it felt that way

All I ever did was slice open the gates

sluice your mind with my streams of consciousness

At least it felt that way.

Suppertime, we sit on the stair-nook

palms separating peach halves from their core;

a simple tug and tear of flesh 

from stone that satisfies us both.

Runner’s High

By Sharon Pinner

This runner’s high is not from speed

But sparrows gathered for spilt seed,

A fly-by from a great red kite,

Or ghost-white owl in silent flight.

Not for beating previous best

But passing where the rooks all nest,

Whitethroats lurking in bramble hedge,

And linnets rising from field edge.

Not achievement of distance run

But bird song hailing new day sun,

Swallow babble on summer air,

Or cuckoo stating that it’s there.

The reason for this runner’s high:

Feathered jewels of earth and sky.

Sara Finally Learns Something Useful About Nature on a Family Weekend

By Dave Klotzkin

Dad insisted on hiking this Family Weekend. 

Sara groaned.  Every weekend was something in the gross outdoors, but hiking was the worst.  She hated the dirt and bugs, and her old boots were too tight.

Now her feet hurt and everyone was way ahead. 

Something caught Sara’s eye: flashes of skin deep in the woods. She squinted. 

 A body!  No, two bodies, one atop the other, moving together.   

It’s a couple, doing it, she realized

“Stay with us.” Dad’s voice, up the trail.

Sara hesitated.  Perhaps she should first sneak through the woods and see exactly how doing it worked.

Paradise Lost?

By Jen Busch

Looking up, she caught a flash of the woodpecker before it darted into the forest. She inhaled deeply, savouring the crisp alpine air, and let the sun caress her face. How she’d missed this. The children, too. Things had been tough, but now they were shrieking with joy, ankle-deep in the stream. Exploring. 

The world flickered and faded to the harsh grey of the holodeck. Their time was up; if they took any more power the regenerators would stop working. But reports were encouraging: surface air quality was improving, and vegetation was surviving longer. Perhaps they’d be let out soon?

Successful Apple Harvest

By Kate Figurska

Collect a group of children with willingness to climb trees and hang of the branches.

Use the dog to herd the children - German shepherd works best.

Announce apple hunt.

Select trees with level of branching suitable for the smallest users.

Make sure every child climbs a tree at least once.

After finishing harvest, collect your children, you’re ready to go back home.

If you’re comfortable with the weight of the basket, choose the longer path. Let the children run wild - the dog will keep them in pack.

Pay attention as they laugh and shout: “Best walk ever.”

Labour of Love

By Moira Ashley

‘One last push, Eve!’ cries the midwife. 

Riding a wave of pain and euphoria, Eve delivers her first-born: a son. She cradles him at her breast, marvelling at the transformation from bawling, red-faced fury, tiny fists flailing, into mild-as-milk contentment. 

Eve blinks back tears as she fingers yellowing bruises, faded legacy of a hell she fled.  ‘Who needs a daddy, eh?’ she murmurs.  ‘Mama’s got love enough for two, my precious boy.’

 But the voice inside her head whispers, ‘When this child reaches manhood, which will have triumphed? Nurture? Or nature?’ 

The Butterfly Effect

By Michael Crouch

The tears came as her mother said they would. ‘Sooner or later, they always do.’

Gina did what Gramps would have done and ran for the garden, away from the gathering and the gossip, to find some peace from the hole that gnawed within her.

‘Nature heals all,’ she could hear him say.

She knelt by the small pond that he’d scooped out with his own hands, and felt the breeze that made the reeds sway. A haze of flittering red and black, zigzagging back and firth, then settling down on her arm.

A Painted Lady.  She smiled.

‘Grandad’s favourite.’

Psychedelicious

By Bill Engleson

Here it comes. 

That old acid flashback. 

Moe’s and Woe’s.

As natural as breathing.

Crammed into the red patent leather booth, bodies attached like flies to flypaper.

A comfy late-night joint.

After Big Brother and the Holding Company.

And Janis.

Never been squeezed in so hungrily.

For everything on the table.

Idiotic laughter.

Donuts! Chocolate melting like mudslides.

And candy sparkles.

Maybe chips.

Fries.

Flies?

And then her loft. Up in that dusty attic. 

The little purple tab. 

Colours, shapes I’d never known, the room full of breasts, skin, patchouli oil and tongues of craving, ravenous for the heights.

Nature’s Bounty

By Laura Varney

Words stung even after she left. Anger hovered and their conversation replayed on repeat.

She searched for a solution to their argument, along country lanes, across fields, skirting pine woods. Sunshine squeezing through a canopy of needles highlighted the army of workers whose buzzing filled the air.  

Mesmerized, she watched the sisters, in their thousands dancing over the heather, under the trees, working separately, together. Their harmonious hum of activity answered her dilemma.

Sisters with a common goal can never be completely out of tune she wrote on the back of the honey bee postcard. It’s in our nature.

We are the Cosmic Dust of Dying Stars

By Enya-Marie Clay

I request distraction

And he tells me that one million Earths can fit inside the Sun,

give or take.

He tells me that the Earth is four and a half billion years old,

give or take.

And isn't it something that if everything that is anything is the universe:

atoms woven and weaving
an infinite pulsing knot—

then all that has once been, remains.

And the grief feels marginally lighter,

a weft in our cosmic cloth.

Yet my embodiment of stardust 

still seeks yours,
it cannot be distracted.