Happy National Poetry Month!

🦋April may be the cruelest month, as T.S. Eliot immortalized in his poem The Wasteland, though we don’t think so. We are rather fond this time of year, because of the longer days and the land stirring with life, but also because it’s National Poetry Month. It’s a month for all of us word- and nature-lovers to geek out on writing, reading, breathing, swimming in earth #poetry and give full controls over to our mytho-poetic consciousness.

SHARE an original #poem with us and on your social media channels with the theme of EMERGENCE, SPRING, or PLANTING. Then tag @WildNatureHeart and use the hashtag #wildnatureheart. We’ll share some of your poetry on our Instagram and Facebook, PLUS we’ll feature one of our favorites in our #spring Newsletter.

Happy poeming!!
Katie and Ryan

Here’s the rest of the poem that the above image introduces, called “I Bent My Ear” by one half of Wild Nature Heart, Ryan Van Lenning.

They were calling for attention
as I walked past—

the ladybugs and horsetails
the mugwort and the trillium
bellowing the rainbow through the redwoods

and baby ferns
curled like seahorses of the forest
confided in me

I supposed I could have kept up my pace
stepping past them,
never learning what song they were singing

or what the the slug was saying
in its bright hum of the earth
from his banana mouth
and sure-footed saunter

But as they were calling
so charmingly and gently
I slowed down
bent my ear
and gave them what they asked for.