As a child, a fallen branch could fill hours of my time.
All it took was a bit of imagination to turn a downed, dead limb into a sword, a fort, a cane—or frankly, anything. A few days ago, I realized it had been a while since I picked up a stick. That instinct to bridge the gap between myself and my surroundings had faded—and I wanted it back. So, one morning after a gusty Seattle spring night, I went for a walk and plucked one from a neighbor’s yard. I felt the bark and the knot, the smooth and the splinter. I twirled it like a baton…until I realized I can’t twirl a baton and dropped the stick. Picking it back up, I wondered where the stick came from, where it wanted to go next.
This act of curiosity, relationship, and imbuing the mundane with meaning is the spirit of poetry.
There’s a long lineage of poets who write with nature as their muse. From classics like Wordsworth and Whitman to more contemporary voices like Mary Oliver and Ada Limón, the editor of Seattle Reads 2025 selection You Are Here, the gift of nature-inspired poetry empowers us to remember that we, too, are nature and that the boundaries we erect between ourselves and the other are traversable with attention and intention.
A poem can make the mundane grand and the grand bearable. The best of poetry is a return to that constant music of childhood—awe around every bend. In times like these—when attention is something we fight to cherish—picking up a stick, walking in the woods, talking to a crow, and making meaning alongside a poem are antidotes to division and disconnection.
Happy Poetry Month, Earth Month, and the start of spring,
Mason Pashia, Friends of The SPL Board Member
Mason publishes a weekly original poem (often about the Northwest) on my Substack. It’s his writing practice and version of “slow-cial” media. Follow along. Two of Mason’s poems are printed below with his permission.
the thing about a forest
is that everything is
wanting nothing
owning nothing
signing its name slowly
with the curve
of the creek bed
much has been said
of awe still
i’m brought to
my knees
i know it doesn’t need this from me
and that nothing does it justice
a douglas fir sings with anyone listening
how the mountain
bluebird releases its name
to a clear day
mischief moon
masquerading in the
daylight dancing toes first in this
slippery middle
wind tells me
yesterday is
today is
next
i find comfort in that