Editor’s note Thank you to everyone who contributed and submitted to the Zine this semester. Throughout this time of isolation, nature has often served as the rare safe ground on which to share moments with those we miss. It has also served as the space of consistency in which we spend our time, when all around us things are changing in unrecognizable ways. We walk in it, we touch it, whether alone or together, and we are reassured that not so much is really different. Now, as spring brings renewed hope of a future without masks and lockdowns, I hope you feel yourself moving forward with a new reverence for the ever-present catharsis and company nature can provide us, despite our circumstances. In choosing these pieces from the Kenyon Community, we have looked for work that expressed this appreciation and love for the beauty and life around us. We hope you can enjoy this space to feel the impact that nature has had on your community members, and have a moment to reflect on how it has spoken to you as well. May you move through this coming summer with a new freedom and ease, a new love of what is under your feet, above your head, and right in front of you. Let it stew in you, let it grow into art, and make sure to share it with us next semester!
Jack Cohen
Peace Sydney Fallon Western psychology calls it closure. Closure: a sharp click of the tongue around the “C” and a swift slip of your lips around the “s”. Rationalize where you first earned your burns to extinguish every flame you came against. But how do you find rational explanations when you live in a dream of pasts and presents and worst case scenarios? Where do you find the sharp finish lines in the clouds of questions your ancestors can’t answer? Can you close away the wounds that pass from helix to helix instead of hand to hand? After mothers and fathers and holy ghosts pivot away, how do you stop chasing them? No, you’re not going to like how it looks. The angles won’t be clean. They won’t look anything like clean computer lines programmed to build a square beat by beat. Closure doesn’t fall as seamlessly as physics will allow- there is no science behind comfort. The lines will meet when you let yourself lie in the grass for the first time and smile without squinting, or when strawberry juice spurts across your cheeks and you don’t reach to wipe it off right away, or when you can forget to check if you locked the front door three times and only do it twice. Peace will restore your skies on the first day you forget you were looking for it to begin with. I promise you’ll find it in your own bones (the last place you remember to look).
Yutan Getzler
my head stops hurting Nicolás Pulido Amador at seven forty-six when the soil darkens i am quiet and moisture rests on my shoes as if that is where it belonged i like things falling like second and third chances i like waiting for the sky to turn purple i like dampness and decay i like children burying shovels in the sand like dozers like grave diggers i like abandoned wrappers like breathing on a date like the fire of cold mouths i like grayscales on a sunny day i like corrupted frames in the roll like closing my eyes too tightly i like footprints on pavement like exhaust smoke i like the wind playing in alleyways i like exceptions like when the fly stops buzzing i like raindrops like bursts like spears i like them on fake leather like islands like eyes like i sit and shiver like laughing like blades of grass at seven forty-six when the soil darkens and the drizzle holds me like all the gods i can’t believe in
Ansley Grider
Ansley Grider
Chelsea Menke
Emma Chin-Hong
Rebekah Utian
Rebekah Utian
Hepatica Ruth Heindel
Gabby Rachman
Untitled Emma Renee Coffman I come here often, To this secluded spot Surrounded by trees. The grove of pines I know so well Still finds ways to surprise me -A curious and temporal girl Wandering among ancient beings. I hope they hear me singing to the tune of forest sounds I can feel the way they dance with me as the wind shakes their branching boughs. What would they say and stories tell, if they had mouths to speak? If evergreen perfumes were laughs and tunes, I would listen for eternity. Instead, I can only trace the bark and sap of their embrace and find the stories deep within By looking, watching, listening.
A Breath of Change Mabel B Jones Standing over hills and hills of heavy wildflowers, the seasons change in the air as I breathe. I hold it in– Yesterday, you told me you had forgotten what time of year it is. You said, it is no year at all. Tonight, I find myself a part of something else entirely, here, at the end of the day, with my hands tearing at the ground and the smell of a dirt from my youth on my tongue. Time blows us over like wind, but with my breath held tightly in my chest, I plant this seed of who I am now, hoping that a future gust might bring it somewhere special and remind me, one day when I need it, that I never break so far apart that I can’t find old joys. I plant a seed of who I am now knowing that I hate wind, even though I try not to, remembering that all I can love some days is the cardinal coming back and back to my morning window, honoring my childlike wonder for the magical things that have roots, and hoping that that is enough. I hold in my hands the future blooms of my life, ones whose promise has been held and carried by the wind I hate. I relinquish them to no year at all, open my palms and –breathe them out...
Yutan Getzler
Julia Holton
Julia Holton
Prayers at the Altar Noelle Jordan How many prayers have been said at this altar of stone How many secrets whispered thinking they were alone How many seekers have sought great sights from this wall Lovers and loners, seekers and lost Healers and hermits, how many have crossed This threshold hoping to hear the call Ancient wise one from centuries past Jagged rock upon you I cast My frail human problems so small Will you spend this fleeting moment with me What wisdom do you have to impart to me As I hunker down on your shoulder so tall I wait, still, for your quiet answer
Rosie Cobb
Phlox Ruth Heindel
Skunk Cabbage Ruth Heindel
Everything but the bark Theresa Carr
Yutan Getzler
Gabby Rachman
Joseph Murphy
End Note Thank you to all the wonderful artists and writers that submitted their work this semester. Special thanks to Rosie Cobb ‘22 who painted our beautiful cover! With love, Abby Navin ‘23 and Mabel B Jones ‘21