Nature Me – Poetry In Time

Poetry in the Park 2025

A rock painted with a saying: Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. -Rumi

Art Stroll Through Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s Webster Woods Sculpture Garden

Last week I had the opportunity to stroll the more accessible, gradual gravel path in Webster Woods, which offers a dramatic view toward the Strait. I encountered some beautiful large works in the open air exhibit.

Among them was my 2025 Poetry in the Park placard, “Varied Ixoreus Thrush,” as part of “Summer Music.” You may listen to my reading of this poem on the PAFAC website.

Photographs by Laura E. Garrard.

The Chroma Zone by Jennifer Kapnek

A rock providing intelligent prose! When asking, “Who am I, What Should I do?,” perhaps we look to what we love!

Rock artist unknown.

“Hugging Alder” for Pushcart.

Photographs of a large alder tree on Lake Crescent with the sunset. Links included to the poem as well as Tulip Tree Press.

TulipTree Review‘s Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Top nominated my 2024 Merit Prize winning poem, “Hugging Alder,” for a Pushcart Prize. This honor is difficult to write about because I was quite surprised and grateful. So that you can read it easily, here is a link to a second contest I have entered it into, The Nature of Our Times: Poems on America’s Lands, Waters, Wildlife, and Other Natural Wonders. It will be considered for publication in an anthology published by Paloma Press of California in connection with the Kent State Wick Center and PoetsforScience.org. Originally, TulipTree published the poem in Stories That Need to be Told, 2024.

https://www.tuliptreepub.com/pushcart-nominees.html

Hugging Alder

The Winter of My Contentment

Frosted logs in front of Lake Crescent and surrounding mountains.

This Will Be the Winter of My Contentment

Sienna satin waves roll through dusk,
Clean expectations of what’s next,
Unknowing heartens my hold,
Fall wind unfastens the shoulds,
Driftwood carves its own art.

I will receive purpose like a loving child,
Tune and pick that old guitar 
As an eager beginner,
Promise the cloud-frothing pastels
I will paint them yet in watercolor.

Light dims my stiffened hands home
Among wafts of camp spaghetti,
Damp leaves, frost coming, and pine.
Gentle I go past tree-huddled teens 
In black T-shirts, jeans and goosebumps.

I’m far from that age but recall 
Their vast empty calling cards
And loose anticipation
With a hint of driving rain.
I will find my youth again.

Copyright 2024 Laura E. Garrard
All photography by Laura E. Garrard

Solstice Psalm

The long night says
become still, prepare.
Oh how I fight being held,
like a squirmy child,
lips tight, head turned
from sticky cherry syrup
offered on a spoon 
from mother’s hand.
I try too hard to heal myself
when I need to fall like sleep
into god’s keep,
the arms of an ancient wood.

Copyright 2024 Laura E. Garrard

Contrast, Poetry in the Park Exhibit.

My poem, “Contrast,” was selected to exhibit in the 2024 Poetry in the Park in Webster Woods of the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center. The theme was “Colorization,” and how what humans place in Nature affects our responses to and experiences in Nature. One aspect of this marriage, a negative one, has stood out to me late winter into spring – the contrast of naturally occurring white color against green (stark beauty) and trash on the drive between my house in Olympic National Park and Port Angeles, especially along the curvy drive next to magnificent Lake Crescent.

So, this could be considered an ecopoem as well as a witness poem. I hope it brings attention to locals and visitors how litter detracts from our outdoor experiences, even as we drive, and encourages behavioral change. I have never lived in a place with this level of disregard and disrespect for the land in the form of littering. I hate to criticize, however, perhaps locals have become blind to this issue. I discovered that the Park Service plans a clean-up along Hwy 101 next to Park property. They will have to close areas of the road to safely do this. Perhaps then, there may be an effort of other clean-ups along the highway.

You may listen to my reading of this poem on the PAFAC website: https://pafac.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Contrast.mp3

Lake Crescent from Log Cabin Resort.
By Laura E. Garrard

Finding Rest in an Old Growth Forest

The Port Angeles Fine Arts Center and Olympic Peninsula Authors selected this poem of mine for their “Under the Canopy” 2023 Poetry in the Park outdoor exhibit in Webster Woods.

The actual tree I lean against and call “Charlie.”

Artist credits for Webster Woods sculptures (top to bottom, left to right): Brandon Zebold, “Offering;” David Eisenhour, “Watershed Notes;” Micajah Bienvenu, “Pi a la Mode;” Steve Jensen, “Suspended Canoe Adrift;” Community Nature Weaving from Summertide 2023 with assistance from MarySue French; Steve Belz, “Sky Gazer;” Laura E. Garrard, “Butterflies Flurry While I Recline on ‘Sky Gazer’.”

New Growth Poetry Exhibit

Port Angeles Fine Arts Center

My poem below was selected, by the Olympic Peninsula Writers through a juried submission, to appear for a year in the PAFAC New Growth outdoors exhibit in the Webster Woods sculpture garden. Following a year, it will be moved with other poems to a number of parks in Port Angeles. It’s very exciting to have been chosen! Below is a photograph of me with the installation on the day of the poetry reading.

Here is a recording of my reading:

Laura E. Garrard reading her poem “I Have to Chase That Squirrel,” June 18, 2022.

I Have to Chase That Squirrel

Start at a run from the door
And accelerate to top lope
Just as I reach the base of the Douglas fir
Even if I’m too late to catch it
My instinct must be served
You laugh and shrug
For me, it’s not just for fun
It’s my essence, my expression
My way to tell the world
What kind of dog I am
So free me to do 
What I want, what I must
Responsibility, according to whom?
My number one purpose right now
Is to chase that squirrel
Even though I’m scared 
I won’t succeed
I must look skyward to see
On which limb the squirrel may be

Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022

Standing beside my New Growth poetry installation in Webster Woods, June 18, 2022.
(Photograph by Michael Nordell.)
My poem perfectly installed in Webster Woods next to a Douglas fir tree at a trail hub.
(Photograph by Laura E. Garrard.)

I’m Already Looking Forward

I’m Already Looking Forward

As the height of golden color
Becomes baked and matted
I can already see in mind’s eye
The blooming locations of next year’s beauties
And smell the sweetness of black cottonwood resin
A mere six months to wait
Things may be so different
I don goose down and Gore-Tex
In preparation of the colder and greener moss walks
Today’s azure brightness however
Forecasts a vital turnover
From nebulous to distinctive images
Only of fertile soil building
The winter wait will create cell space
Time will combine the correct mineral and organisms
I along with garden and forest will renew
As that is what seasons and bodies do

By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022
Oct. 31. 2021

“Winter to Summer,” By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022

Elusive Winter Sun

Elusive winter sun
Shine through frozen limbs
And warm my chest

Bring my inflexible bones back to life

Show the way to peace
I once observed
In your summer shining
Warmth through and through
Basking in the new grass

Sleepy relaxed muscles
A dragonfly lighting
On my stillness

By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022
Dec. 28, 2021



[Photo Gallery By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022]

Broken Halves

Broken Halves

Broken halves

Jagged lines

A leaf

Has fallen

My hand

Chosen

This one

Split open

Creating

A heart

Torn

Explosion.

Fresh fall

Beginnings

Unfold

Voice uncovered

Discover

Within

Releases

Outward.

Comes the child

Dreams held

Deeply

In folds

Buried

Creates canvas

Of remembering

What I

Had left behind

And cherish

The child within.

She held magic

In soulful

Self portraits

Desire for

Expression

And hope

In movement

Of her body

Inward poetry

Spoken.

She loved

So deeply

Dancing within

Wanting to show

Herself without.

Sept. 20, 2021

Enjoying the Calm

Enjoying the Calm

Today I approached the lake
And observed that she was very still.
She said, I’m thinking.
About what? I asked.
My destiny,
About where I’m going.
Ah, me too, I said.
I’d rather stay here with you.
Me too, I agreed,
This valley holds infinite beauty
And nourishes my breath and body.
She said, But if we stay here
We will not discover 
What may happen
If we were to explore
Elsewhere.
I said, True,
But we can be
Here together now,
Enjoy your sparkling sunshine,
And not worry about leaving just yet.
She said the winter storms are coming-
I don’t want them to, but they will-
The waves and current 
Will carry this me away.
I know, I said,
We will spend some time
And enjoy the calm.

By Laura E. Garrard
Oct. 8 2021


All photos above and below by Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021

I Became a Drop of Water One Day

In celebration of Poetry in Your Pocket Day, during this Poetry Month of April, I recorded myself reciting this poem (in the above video) while kayaking on Crescent Lake.

I became a drop of water one day
I floated from a cloud into a high hillside creek
And flowed downward to join a magnificent turquoise river
The river rushed into an emerald oblong lake
Where I greeted trout and merganser feet
I filled the entire lake as all drops linked together
I felt my body reach from one shore to the other
As well as separate to myself, the original droplet
After I had known fully my lake environ
I streamed out to the bay, then rougher moving sea
Joining currents stronger than me
Carrying me to other shores and other beings
I grew in knowledge, strength, and courage
Finally after a lifespan, I recognized myself again
For the water is me
Fills me
Nourishes me
And heals me
I became a drop of water one day
And through it realized the essence of all creation

By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021
Feb. 5, 2021



[Top and Below Photos all by Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021]