Stillwater

Below is a poem that is featured on the ODNR website as one of several contest award winners.

I’m a nature lover. I have been for as long as I can remember. In the research process for this capstone project, it’s been too easy for me to get wrapped up in the negatives, in all the things that need improved and all the ways we’re failing the environment and the many beings that inhabit it. It’s been too easy to get distanced from why I’m so passionate about design in the first place: out of love for the earth and all her creatures. Plants, wildlife, animals of all kinds—including humans.

It’s works of art like this poem that remind me of that love. It’s a love and a passion shared by so many. This poem in particular is so moving to me because it captures the relative insignificance of us humans in a place like a nature reserve. We don’t belong there, though we are lucky enough to pass through. As long as we do so with the utmost respect.

Resources.

Dillon, D. (2025). Stillwater. Ohio Department of Natural Resources. https://dam.assets.ohio.gov/image/upload/ohiodnr.gov/documents/wildlife/general/2025_Writers_for_Wildlife_Panels.pdf