Wild Greens

Have you noticed that each month, the Wild Greens logo gets a seasonal update? Maggie Topel has been designing our logos since our very first “WG” on a pine needle background, introduced in November 2020. Maggie’s logos are one of my favorite parts of the process of releasing Wild Greens. Some months, we have conversations about it, or I have a clear vision in mind, or Maggie will send me an idea board to choose from. But sometimes when she sends the logo to me it’s a complete surprise. These are my favorite months! The unveiling, usually a week or two before issue release, inspires me and helps me see the issue in a new way.

The back and forth of this process, from conversation to design, is an organic part of how Wild Greens grows.  

This month, you guessed it, was a surprise month. Maggie sent the logo to me a few days ago, explaining her thought process behind creating the design. I’m sharing it with you, because to me it gets at the heart of what ecology means. Maggie writes: “For ecology, I went with bees, since they have important connections to plants and humans. The bee is pollinating a flower in the foreground, and the human-created hive in the background highlights bees' connection to humans. (I tried including a beekeeper but it got too crowded in the image.)”

Ecology is about the vital connection between environments and inhabitants. Bees pollinate the plants, and humans tend to the bees. We’re all connected, and our actions affect each other.

Isabelle Quilty’s short story, “See How the Jacaranda Climbs,” greets a growing tree in an urban environment. This jacaranda’s memory is long. Marina Scheinberg’s acrylic paint and marker drawing, “Reservoir Frogs,” depicts a woman at rest in a lake filled with fish, flowers, and frogs.

In the first of three poems by Christian Ward, “Clover,” the simple clover provides a basis for an entire ecosystem. Melissa Lomax’s watercolor and crayon “A Lil Love Long Goes a Long Way” depicts gratitude for those who care for our environment.

Lauren Kimball’s newest Turtle and Hare comic ushers in a darker tone on human culpability in ecological destruction.

“Let’s Save the Planet!,” a watercolor by Irina Novikova, highlights beloved animals, including the hummingbird and rhinoceros, all centering around a single drop of life sustaining water. “Toad” by Christian Ward is an ode to an uglier, less loved creature.

“Ivory Billed,” by Noll Griffin, connects the probably extinct ivory-billed woodpecker with a sewing machine company that was implicated in the deforestation that led to its extinction. “Say Goodbye” by Robin Brownfield depicts 15 beloved and critically endangered species.

To end, we spend time with a tiny, endangered, scarce butterfly. “Mt. Charleston blue butterfly (Icaricia shasta charlestonensis)” depicts this butterfly’s rarity and its careful cataloguing of plants.

We are a part of this earth’s ecology, a system both larger and smaller than we can imagine. So let’s participate. Take a walk. Plant a garden. Breath a deep breath of clean air. Keep growing, and while you’re at it, keep reading Wild Greens.

-Rebecca

See How the Jacaranda Climbs

by Isabelle Quilty

I’m sorry, for how lonely it must be. Your roots suckle mud and concrete like fingers dip into honey. You dream of auburn swept skies, of lands of snow and fire carried on the wind. Your leaves are green and wide for all seasons, like a fat, flat tongue eager for the passion you can hear bleeding from the sidewalk. Careful now—the cement is constructed of the blandest daydreams. 

How many eggs are left in the fridge?

Is my car registration due soon?

Your bough is curious. It doesn’t turn its nose up at the surrounding mundane, but reaches aged limbs towards the azure blue in hopes to taste the memory of all. It is a lonesome tragedy—the sight of such beauty framed in mud, a Main Street, and an abandoned construction lot. 

How do you know how to piece together the fractured dream of the Australian pastoral? 

Do your roots go deeper than you can tell me?

Does memory travel in sweat, rain, and tears?

Perhaps the waters of the Snowy Mountain have come to you as droplets racing down your branches. Perhaps the thunder of Brumbies, their roaming past, echoes in your roots, and the passion of the Galah in its mid-morning song reverberates through generations of your bark. 

I wish for everyone that is used to the grey drab of cement to stop, even if just for a moment, to watch and see your beauty. To appreciate the glimpse of nature and memory standing in defiance against the backdrop of cranes and signal towers. 

I watch from the window, as I have for all the seasons, and I hope the city folk have come to see how you climb.

Toad

by Christian Ward