WATCH THE 2024 WINNERS READ THEIR POEMS

Do you like the posters seen below? Visit the city of Tualatin’s web site for details on their Poster contest winners.

Below are submissions by all contestants in the order they were received. Format may not exactly follow the author original intent due to limitations of web site formatting. However all are archived as originally intended by the authors.

I Lay on My Knees

By Lynlee Skinner

Trees, trees I see all around me

I lay on my knees, listening, waiting, watching

I see birds dancing in the cool, soft

Warm-hearted air, I know I’ve found my place

Suddenly, I see a sweet, kind face

I see her leafy green eyes, watching all of her creations

She is mother earth

We live on her beautiful, beautiful, world

This Tree That I Love

By Patricia Brisbois

This tree sits so quietly now

at the corner of the yard

next to the sidewalk,

like it does each year

after a long and glorious summer,

its leaves turning from green, to red and purple.

Once it held so much laughter in its branches,

branches that expand wide and full across the grass

and yet begin low to the ground,

just right for climbing,

in easy reach of small hands and feet.

Its trunk forking in three ways

with room enough for small bodies

to lift themselves up for a better view of the world;

sometimes four or five at once,

with smiling faces full of laughter,

with imaginations sailing out to sea on a pirate ship

in search of hidden treasure,

or climbing to the top of the castle

to keep watch for intruders.

But now

it sits so quietly,

this tree that I love.

All those small children, grown and gone;

scattered in the wind

like the leaves that will soon fall.

Yet, it is waiting patiently,

this tree that I love,

for it knows, as do I,

that a child will soon come again,

look up, grab on, and climb high.

Love or Lost

by Leeann Rooney

I crouched under the Juniper in the early evening shadows

Hiding in and among the branches — hoping

Hoping that: in this child’s game of hide-and-seek

He will find me.

I remember the berries

Large and seed-like, from green to purple

I wondered which animals ate them,

I wondered how long before he would find me.

I waited, wanting to experience that first kiss

But when he found me —

He did not come with a kiss

But just a “Tag you're it!”

Rock Juniper make great bonsai

Twisted and gnarly

Miniaturized and resilient

Living 50 years, some for millennia.

Often surviving fires that sweep the arid lands

Rooting in inhospitable patches

Rocky perches, arid climates, and steppes

Native yet invasive, protective yet reviled.

My juniper was bigger

The size of a small tree

With sharp needle-like leaves

And lots of hiding places within.

Old-growth Western Juniper’s

Stooped and twisted; self-pruning, shedding branches for survival,

Growing in the Badlands of Oregon and beyond

Growing until the chainsaws come.

Furrowed red bark used for baskets, cradles, and torches

No two Juniper are alike

Irreplaceable, unique, innocent, living…,

Enticing you to get out of your car and take a photograph.

Stories lie within their twisted bark

The stories of cowboys and cattle ranchers

Cattle eating the wild grasses as they roam,

Stories of mankind's comings and goings.

A Robin perched, Steller’s Jay squawking,

Juniper Titmouse singing its heart out

Eating berries, then flying away

Spreading juniper seeds to new places.

Bighorn Sheep and Pronghorn Antelope

Hiding among the juniper

Safe from the mountain lion

For now anyway, rocky sanctuaries.

Love and food and shelter and hiding

For this i implore you,

Please rescue these marvelous trees from

Human destruction.

The Family Tree

by Margo Strength

There is a lone tree I have admired

she stands tallest amongst her peers.

Many a time I have sought for her

through life’s joys, sorrows and tears.

Her tall majestic trunk once split into two,

and I asked, “What could have caused this malaise?”

For now, it is obvious something momentous had just happened,

likened to our own suffering in many ways

Could it have been that strike of lightening

that followed with thunder and so much rain.

When I shivered and stayed warm inside,

I did not check on her, to my disdain.

That tall trunk once split,

over the years curved back into a hug.

How parallel this lone tree’s existence

was to my own, I shrugged.

For we all need each other to lean on

to share in one another’s burdens and strife.

How inspiring it is to gaze at (and love)

this old trusted tree in my life.

And lastly, I am calm and serene

as the wind blows gently through her boughs.

For this is her place she can call her home

she is welcoming me, and my heart overflows.

COLOR THE EARTH WITH BEAUTY

by Shelby Jean Bell

Break forth your leaves, Oh, Beautiful Trees!

Plaster the skies with color.

Paint all this earth with rainbows of leaves

In shades that are like no other.

Please, may I sit in your shelter of branches,

To feel cooling shade, absorbing the quietness

Or simply to feel the gentle breeze?

Oh! The magical arbor of trees!!

Vanishing

by Carolyn Adams

Mist covers the evergreens,
brushing laden branches,
shifting trunks, melding them
into fog shadows.

Brushing laden branches,
the world vanishes
into fog shadows.
The forest becomes a small room.

The world vanishes.
Rain taps the shoulders of trees.
The forest becomes a small room.
A mat of lichen falls.

Rain taps the shoulders of trees,
reminding of a thirst for water.
A mat of lichen falls,
damp and soft in its concavity.

Reminding of a thirst for water,
the shower passes.
Damp and soft in its concavity,
a window of air clarifies the silence.

The shower passes.
Geese navigate the tree tops.
A window of air clarifies the silence,
folding the sky at its seams.

Geese navigate the tree tops,
shifting trunks, melding them.
Folding the sky at its seams,
mist covers the evergreens.

Butterfly

By Erinn Stimson

As I sit and watch you flutter on by

I'm in awe of your beauty.

Wings filled with color

like the flowers on a warm spring day.

Oh, graceful butterfly I just love you so.

You are full of wonder and charm

and fill my heart with joy when I see you.

Kissed by a Coyote

by Nathan Corliss

I decided to sleep outside.

In the night, I felt

something small, warm, and wet

accompanied by a sniffing sound

gracing my naked face.

In my sleep trance

I assumed it was my dog

or my wife being weird.

I opened my eyes

and illuminated by first quarter moonlight

diffused by the branches of the

march maples and an aspiring doug fir —

the narrow snout of a coyote.

Petrified. Enchanted.

We lingered, eyes locked.

I knew a bite to the face

would be unpleasant.

He or she trotted away.

I went back to sleep.

winter trees, into spring

John L. Miller (after William Carlos Williams)

a look

up from the screen

through

the usual window

brings on inhabitation,

the one in front

and the stand nearby—

my eyes

want to tremble or sway

through remaining leaves

join storm-

robust branches

that thicken-bind

to a trunk

root tangles plunging

as grip without hands into earth

become

heart

over time

become canopy

come the spring-greened display

of love

that all the world

will see

Teacher Tree

by Rebecca Smolen

How many

secrets can hide

within a tree? Hypnotized

by branches and roots, I

could try to follow each one

and get lost for days in that stare.

Do I look at them all wrong?

Should I invert this

hourglass held

by the

h e a r t

of it and put

attention more

on the roots?

Is that the

part that

sings? I keep

my pen on the

paper hoping to hear

it even now, hoping

to learn the secrets from

a lifetime of listening from

before they speak of survival.

Winners of the 2024 poetry contest