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Nature as Metaphor – Olivia Huang – 1st Place

Wrath, Ruin, and Rain

Oh! How does the wind scream

How she mourns the loss of her love;

The icey stillness of the south,

The quiet glaciers of the north. 

Furiously she lashes in the night

She tears at the hot, snapping wires in the sky;

Children have learned to fear her ire,

And the darkness that swallows their sight. 

Trees that enjoyed her playful toying

Birds that laughed against her tickling fingers;

Gone are the days of innocent whispers,

For the wind hears only of destroying.

Oh! Why does the wind sing terror?

Her wrath comes from the sea; 

The boiling billows of the east,

The sizzling swells of the west.

Storm is her comrade 

Lightning and thunder her revenge;

For she reeks of burning vengeance,

Her howls drive man mad.

But anger lasts never forever

Even the wind’s wrath flickers to naught;

Her army ceases brutal onslaught,

The wind retreats to earth’s endless corners.

Oh! She weeps in silence with solemn heartache

While man is left to admire her ruin;

Palm branches strewn on the road,

Buildings bowing in submission.

And silence.

Like the quiet of the western front;

You must endure the peace,

As nature resumes her course. 

Nature as Metaphor – Mia Golden – 2nd Place

climate change as a V17 boulder problem

exhaust and ozone marr the lotus-pocked 

sky and we crave another chance for rebirth, one outside

this photochemical haze and the bleeding, half-moon gouges of industry. 

we yearn to escape the wildfires and the mudslides and 

the flash floods and the death tolls and the microplastics

and the suffocating sea levels and the fear that a tree

only falls if the government hears it make a sound. so we make noise. 

we compost our napkins and yell at exxon-mobil and 

shop at thrift stores and grow frustrated and pack the truck with crash pads.

we find what remains: stone and laughter and sweat and calluses and 

and pockets of fresh air. we lucid dream

in joshua tree and flash midnight lightning in yosemite and 

dragonfly in hueco tanks and piano traverse in flagstaff mountain and 

boulder and grow bolder. we find peace in national parks, in the 

symbiotic relationship between us and the rock.

tonight, we sift starlight through tree branches instead of

telephone wires. but the relief is only temporary. 

we have had the privilege to rock climb while pacific islands struggle to 

stay afloat. kiribati has been waist-deep in water, but 

do we only care now, when it happens in san diego too? 

oceans keep acidifying, even as we 

drive inland. the atmosphere warms. this affects all of us,

and we know we can’t look away– 

we can feel it when we close our eyes. 

it burdens our dreams.

Landscapes and Natural Settings – Marina Kidwell – 3rd Place