(2025, June 2nd)
Kaitlyn Church
Kaitlyn:
To study the natural world is, in many ways, to study ourselves. My academic studies in Wildlife, Fisheries, and Aquaculture teaches me how life persists quietly, stubbornly, and beautifully across time and tension. It is a discipline rooted in precision, in data, and in the physical. But alongside it, my creative writing draws me into the unseen, the emotional, the symbolic, the human response to what science reveals.
I don’t see these pursuits as separate. Science asks questions about how the world works. Art asks what it means. One feeds the other. Writing gives voice to the wonder and grief I encounter in ecological study. It transforms field notes into reflection and patterns into meaning. Science, in turn, grounds my imagination in truth. It keeps my metaphors rooted and my stories connected to the real world even as they reach beyond it.
There is something essential about viewing the natural and scientific through the eyes of an artist. It allows us to feel the weight of a vanishing species or the beauty of a fragile system not just in the mind, but in the heart. In a world where so much is measured, we still need space for wonder, for empathy, for story.
...
A holy wild
Send me into the wilderness.
Barefoot, flowers in my hair.
I shall lay on a mattress of clover,
bathe in the streams,
feast on the stars.
Come, let the feral animals
welcome me as one of
their own. Take me to
where I belong.
Barefoot, flowers in my hair.
I shall lay on a mattress of clover,
bathe in the streams,
feast on the stars.
Come, let the feral animals
welcome me as one of
their own. Take me to
where I belong.
Summer
I have been a riverbed
run dry. Cracked stones,
charred and scorched
from the sun, make out
the shape of my body.
Oh, I can’t describe the
feeling of your warm
summer rain. The Earth
around me is singing.
Can’t you hear the rocks
steaming with joy?
run dry. Cracked stones,
charred and scorched
from the sun, make out
the shape of my body.
Oh, I can’t describe the
feeling of your warm
summer rain. The Earth
around me is singing.
Can’t you hear the rocks
steaming with joy?
Is it bad to say
The orange tufts
against green Earth were striking.
I’d feel morose to say beautiful,
but—
nevertheless.
I shrouded you
In my shadow.
A changing room between worlds.
I thought back to my baby
at home:
cuddled and warm.
Wearing the same stripes as you.
The ice on your fur
crackled as I tucked
you in my bag.
Maybe
against green Earth were striking.
I’d feel morose to say beautiful,
but—
nevertheless.
I shrouded you
In my shadow.
A changing room between worlds.
I thought back to my baby
at home:
cuddled and warm.
Wearing the same stripes as you.
The ice on your fur
crackled as I tucked
you in my bag.
Maybe
beneath will be warmer
than the things above.
More peaceful,
more kind,
quiet.
The next morning,
than the things above.
More peaceful,
more kind,
quiet.
The next morning,
I’ll forget until I see the red
fresh mound
through the curtain of steam,
hugging my face from my cup.
Throughout the day, I’d think of you and wonder
is it bad to say you were beautiful.
fresh mound
through the curtain of steam,
hugging my face from my cup.
Throughout the day, I’d think of you and wonder
is it bad to say you were beautiful.