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by Alexa Livingston, Rachel Carson NWR Intern Stretching 50 miles along the southern Maine coast, Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge preserves and protects delicate salt marsh ecosystems and the rich history of coastal New England agriculture preserved within them. On any given summer morning, Refuge staff head out to one of the 13 estuaries encompassed by the Refuge to collect data, restore habitat, and discover remnant agricultural structures designed by salt marsh farmers that tell a fascinating story. In the…

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UNE Students Are Already Starting to Change the World : Isabella Petroni, the youngest elected official In Framingham, Massachusetts | Nor’easter News (unethebolt.com) Isabella Petroni, a senior environmental studies and marine affairs double major, was raised in the “weird” city of Framingham, Massachusetts where she was surrounded by both city and woods, and her passion for environmentalism and the humanities grew with her.  Petroni knew at the age of 19, she wanted to, “give back to the community that has…

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By Alexa Livingston Food waste is becoming a serious issue for the environment.  Nearly 40% of all food produced in the United States is wasted, equivalent to 119 billion pounds of waste, $408 billion, in a single year. (Gunders). Most of the waste ends up in municipal landfills which are the third human lead contributors to methane emissions; a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide at rendering climate change over a 100 year frame (Booker).  Food is…

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Suppose you didn’t have feet anymore and you wereremoved from the dirt where the rot always starts,so you don’t have to scrub your white shoes again,or bandage the blisters to hide your limp. Suppose your ugly wounds disappeared with your feetalong with the oozing – almost – a callusbut you were still hurting, still dirty, still bleeding,and couldn’t show anyone where the pain was rooted.

Weeping willowstorment me with graceful cascadesof slender leaves swaying in your arms. The tree is you. teardrops fall from our drooping boughsAnd when I wake up alone, my cheeks are wet.

thinking of the storm that upturnedthe shagbarks on the bankthe rain that came like flamesand left their roots reaching forsome truth greater than themselves.in the ground they were blindnow new leaves spring into greenwell I might finally believewhere there is pleasure, there is pain. Edit: To Begin, Again. When I was younger and still naive I would sit beneath a shagbark tree. I admired how the bark warped and curled in smoke gray strips to protect itself from fire, insects,…

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her father is home,he’s 94 years old.she pulls out anotherbeneath the unkept CVS sign. the lighter falters.tonight might be the night.

The safety of campground lights are out of reachlike a city across the river but the stench lingersas liquor on my uncle’s breath while his handcreeps like shadows of skyscrapers across empty streetswhen night falls, and it has fallen. Somewhere, there’s a thousand simultaneous footsteps beneathcoruscating stars that hold my gaze through the tainted red skyuntil I’ve lost them to the canopy – to the dark –where my uncle leans in and asks a question thatI only somewhat hear through…

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draft 1: so maybe nature knew all alongyou would find me – in a way Every year of my life I had knownNothing of you, with certainty, butwith certainty now, I am nothing to youbut your quiet summer dalliance.we are colored – in a wayby a transient breadth of loveat the end of love’s breath.you’ll always love something moreafter it has left. so maybe nature knew all alongit would find my weakness – in a way. draft 2: so maybe…

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