Editor’s note Thank you to everyone who contributed and submitted to the Zine this year! This project began during the isolating time of covid and I am so happy that we were able to continue with this project and make it yearly. Nature is a safe space for us all to retreat to and when everything else feels uncertain, it can always be counted on. We know that nature is always around us – waiting with open arms. Our time outside, walking, touching, and taking in its presence – whether alone or together – serves as a reminder that even when things feel different, nature is a constant. In our selection process for the Zine, we searched for pieces from our Kenyon community that expressed this appreciation and love of the life around us. We hope you enjoy this collection of art and feel the impact that nature has on our community members. We also hope this gives you a moment to reflect on how it speaks to you. We wish you a summer of leaping into the world with a recognized love of what is under, above, and right in front of you. Use that inspiration to make art, journal, or whatever else it compels you to. We look forward to seeing your creations next year!
Sofia Suardi
Bury me In Blue Julia Holton
Springtime Reserves Juniper Gibbs I’ve been trying to capture this feeling. this feeling of oncoming spring. This feeling reaped only by a sky the color of robin eggs and flowers erupting from fading snow— this fleeting and perpetual change. Winter dies hopeful (one season’s death, another’s birth) and out from the frigid shell of ice hatches springtime! A daydream spawning ground, the season of birth and deluge awakens reverie from its hibernation and seeds the fertile mind with belief in an inevitable harvest. After every winter it comes, but still it evades me: Oh, if one could force this feeling! (how tantalizing and unspecial) If one could capture it, like lightning bugs in a jar! Can a false harvest grow fruitful? I’ve been trying to conjure this feeling, hold it gently in my hands (the sweet infant season) and jar it up for Next Winter so I can keep some Springtime Reserves.
Magic Lake Julia Holton
The Poem Where I Long For You Halle Preneta You sparked a curiosity fire within me and I just want to be warm again
Emma Chin-Hong
Theresa Carr
Layke Burke
The Ladybug Warrior Juniper Gibbs Today I came across an up-turned ladybug Floundering on the sink with her legs to the sky. I counted only five limbs And her faded hue was far from red But when I’d hardly touched her, She clung instantly to my fingertip, Crawled about my hand, And prepared herself to fly. That is how I know little things, too, Desire truly to live.
Sofia Suardi
You and I Will Walk Gideon Malherbe You and I will walk Under trees and along pathways That children douse with chalk Before the leaves cover it so Colored in yellow and orange A vibrant display of death You begin to talk And I take one final breath It has been a while Since I have seen so many new faces Previous iterations of myself Would have my mind off the races But now I greet them with a smile A vibrant display of death My soul kept dragging me down So I had to get it off my chest The cool winds blow modestly A cheap exhibition of power Its feeling is sharp and broad And makes the hair on your skin tower For I have learned a valuable lesson from the very leaves we walk on Sometimes a part of yourself must die for you to move on For you must know by now that it gets cold once a year or so But that you and I are acquainted it is to you that I will go.
Rivers of Love Halle Preneta I am searching for you in words. Hunting through them for some sense of you. Searching for the curious glow in your eyes that captivated me the first time I saw them. Your wild hair and messy skin and star-struck wonder at everything that could possibly exist. The little smirks you get while reading out loud and your voice as calming as running rivers in nature, beauty just discoverable to any eye who wishes to behold it. Your imperfections reminding me that you are still human. That I don’t know what to expect in this next step and it makes me scared and I’m wishing you were here to make it better but I know you can’t. And that’s okay. I will learn one day to stop being so dependable on other people. I will learn one day
to stop loving what I cannot reach. I will learn one day that water always slips through my fingers every time I go to reach for it. But today, searching for your messy skin and glowing brown eyes and wild brown hair and curious star-struck wonder, all the things that make you you in these words; I know today is not that day. Today, I hold water in my hands, watch it slip through my fingers like sand, realize I will only be able to hold onto you through my words. Realize I will never be able to see the real you like how everyone sees colors differently, rods and cones creating paintings of vivid color that are different to all eyes yet still absolutely beautiful. Realize that love will always be weird. Always not make any sense. Always show up when I least expect it to. Doesn’t have a one-sentence fits all definition. Doesn’t help. Doesn’t care
who, what, when, why, or how. Yet, somehow, will always be true. At least for me. I still don’t understand love yet. What it is, who it’s for, but what I do know is that as I search for you in these words, find little fragments of your glowing brown eyes and wild brown hair and voice like the calming rivers of the canals, I know I have grown to love you. I just wish I knew how.
Emma Chin-Hong
Outward Bound Julia Holton
Abby Navin
Summer Job Gideon Malherbe It’s late may Yet it snows It's high up, where the rocks scrape sky And the colors change on the rain. The dry brush and grass will turn The trees in burlap sacks mud. I wake up to cold chills I fall asleep to heavy gusts of wind Under stars that shine at night To those who see no difference To the tree outside their window. The peaks hide behind the clouds Camouflaged The only the I have here are Faces to dodge. The sun comes down hotter The peaks show their face, The tears form rivers that No one will step in twice. I remember When the trees would overwhelm All those who would walk here, Now I just talk To those who just got here.
Thompson Cottages Julia Holton
Emma Chin-Hong
Oh, To Be More Than Who I Am Now Abby Navin Shunned by my burning mother, Released into eternal damnation of static suffering, Striving towards a spinning drunkenness Only granted by that of warm skin – Pick me up and roll me down this hill. So that I may know the fleeting beauty of purpose Just to return to the inevitable rot of this land, Side by side with decomposing matter. But not me, I lay still – And fall slower than any droplet, Sinking and sinking and sinking, Until I reach the forgotten grasp Of my own mother, To be swallowed and Made whole once more.
Stills from BFEC Videos Gregory Spaid
End-Note Thank you to all the wonderful artists and writers that submitted their work this semester. Special thanks to Emma Chin-Hong ‘24 whose photograph is our beautiful cover! With love, Abby Navin ‘23