At the end of 2024, I was on a surf trip in Costa Rica. Seeking peace and quiet from the hustle and bustle of the hectic surfing village, I took my camera into the dense rainforest on the slopes near the village. I was particularly fascinated by the shimmering vegetation in the eternal shade of the jungle.
by Megan Quinn Content Warning: Eating Disorders I glanced at my watch. Ten minutes until lunchtime. I just had to finish four more meters on this transect. I was counting flowers along the 50-meter transect tape measure to record data on the quality of the pollinator habitat of this post-burn site. “3,4,5…” I muttered as I counted the purple flowers […]
Zebra in Nairobi National Park (2019) Undefeated by Rain (2020) Marine Circus (2020) The Story Goes On… (2019) Nanako is a graduate student at Yale School of the Environment (2023-2025). Her lifework revolves around environmental issues and she has been working in this field for over ten years. Nanako uses a reduction woodcut printing, a technique which she learned while living […]
May a man look up from the utter hardship of his life and say: let me be like these. Hölderlin, In Lovely Blue. 1 Circa 1400 BCE. An olive tree in Vouvés, Crete. From ‘vouvismos’ meaning the whispering of the river flowing through. It wasn’t the only thing that lived then. There were many: cicadas and acanthus flowers, cacti and […]
A couple weeks ago, I wandered the Polylepis forest in the Chimborazo Park Reserve. After a two-hour trek through the sandy trail, passing by vicuna animals and native Andean shrubs, I saw the entrance. The sight of the trees with their branches reaching out in all directions struck me.
I’m not a very good nature tour guide. For one thing, I don’t know much about nature. For another, I walk very quickly; I have to keep reminding myself to slow down. Despite my shortcomings; however, two days before Halloween 2019, I take my English Composition class on a walk to a nearby greenspace, a short walk from our community college campus in Queens. Greenspace. It’s such a recent compound that Word autocorrects it into two.
Blue eyes, sometimes grey and stormy Others clear as cloudless day. One moment safe Enveloped in translucent depths Next, the ice wall melts Glaciers crash below; an enormous splash Waves build A mountain face of swirling color, kaleidoscope of shimmering light Smothering Drowning Swallowing blue and salt and foam Choking Spewing Struggling to swim up Desperate for air Weak arms […]
One of my favorite photographs hangs in my bathroom. At its center is a wheelbarrow, with wooden handles, braces, and legs. The ten-spoke wheel is iron. Cow chips – dry dung – are stacked two feet high in the tray. They also litter the grassy landscape, which is over-exposed and unending. In black and white, each chip looks like a […]
I followed my mother down a winding forest path. The trail head peaks through the trees that line the softball field down the street from my house. You wouldn’t know it was there if you weren’t looking for it. Gnarled tree roots reach up from the soil, weaving across the path—the perfect snare for an imprecise step. Gusts of wind had recently […]
The first thing I did during my tryout for the sailing team was crash straight into the seawall. Everyone at the Naval Academy is required to be part of a sports team. I did track in high school, but there was no way I was making the team at the Academy, and I was forced to shop around for alternatives. My dad owned […]
In the Shade of the Cottonwood Tree I was born and raised in the desert. Like most desert plants and animals, I love rain. I live for rain. I live because of rain. Rain heals me, as it heals and seals the cracked surfaces of sunbaked arroyos and limestone canyon walls. It peels back the membranes of seedpods, freeing them […]
For an audio version, here is Jesse reading the piece on his Yonder Lies Podcast. On a hot day in the summer of 2018, I woke up to red and blue lights saturating the white dolomite walls that loom over the Ten Sleep Rock Ranch, the new rock climber’s campground in the canyon just upstream of the town of Ten Sleep, Wyoming. I had been […]