Art and Poetry Contest for the 2025-26 Annual Report

2025-2026 Writing Contest Winner
A Plot with a View, by Stephen Baker​

​I was walking through a cemetery one warm sunny day on the errand of shopping for my own plot. The cemetery was vast, with open areas of flat markers, some with upright stones. In a wooded area, engraved boulders were strewn about like glacial deposits from the end of the ice age. I liked that idea — a boulder engraved with the names of our family members, perhaps a hollow on top to collect rainwater for birds.

The stones read like a dramatis personae — the names and dates telling tales both of joy and pain. Many listed multiple generations, some with service markers for veterans of both world wars and even some earlier. The cruelest of all were the many lives of children cut short before the parents, or a mother and child who died the same day.

I worked up a sweat in the humid air while making my way up through one shady area that had plots available. The air was still and insects had found me. Reaching the crest, I came to a place where I felt at peace. It was still in the shade but near the edge of the wood. It overlooked an expanse of mown lawn, and a breeze swept up from it into the wood, cooling me and keeping the mosquitoes at bay. Waiting there was a grave marker in the shape of a speckled granite bench with rough edges and polished engraved seat, just right for two visitors to sit side by side. I sat down, cooled quickly in the breeze and enjoyed the view. Next to it was a plot that was still available; if I chose it for myself I wouldn’t be the one enjoying the view there. But anyone who came to visit — or simply sat down — might enjoy that breeze — and maybe a little of the peace I rested in below.

2025-2026 Art Contest Winner
Mihaela Rusu - Standing Between Shadows

Honorable Mention -  Lisa Kent - Dying Slowly

---

Art and Poetry Contest for the 2024-2025 Annual Report

2024-25 Art Contest Winner

Winter Trees
by Annaliese Bischoff

Annaliese Bischoff - Winter Trees - Etching (hard ground with aquatint), 5" x7", 2023. I worked to capture the spirit in the landscape through multiple states of the zinc plate in acid baths.

Honorable Mentions

Martha Brouwer - Consoled - This is painted in acrylic on a 30 x 40 inch canvas in 2012. I paint many different subjects depending on what interests me at the time. This piece was painted after the death of our son.

Sally Dillon - Aging Tulip - I photographed this tulip in my front yard, moments before a gust of wind blew off all the petals. Then I painted them on a wooden panel with acrylic paint, 24" x 24" in 2024.

POETRY and Writing from Friends and Family

Click here for the poetry page that includes writing from Wildwood friends and family.

2024-25 Writing Contest Winner

Stones of Wildwood Cemetery
By Ali de Groot

Here am I,
the inevitable and indomitable stone,
the last earthly carving of a soul’s given name.
I long for you
just as you long for the distant spirit. 
Come to me when you can, and walk my walk, calm your talk.

Come in the dark season, in times of few footprints, 
when my fluffed white blankets protect me.
Oh, you think it cold! But to granite, marble or quartz, the snow is soft as angora,
piling layer after layer, transforming my angles into curvy curves
while a cardinal rests atop its frozen perch.
Your steps come heavy, slow, or gliding like a skater
as you plod or ski or slide through trails you cannot see but know are there.

Come in the season of rain that washes me of dirt, 
gentle drizzle or slanted sheets, it is all the same 
anointment, sacred or not.
In the heavy mud, bursting buds of color and seed,
violets and bluets signal one month, azalea another, 
green kidskin leaves unfurl as the days warm.
I feel the sun’s smile, hear your prayers,
while puffed red robins sing hope to your heart.

Come on the tail of daffodils, with sparrows and grasses,
umbrellas of tree-hands embracing me and shading the light 
that grows and grows to new height.
You, running faster now, with a dog leaping and leading the way
Both eager to feel the earth and wind on your skin, 
just as when you saw first light within.

Come in the time of crunching crisping maple and oak
surrounding me in a regal cloak of crimson and gold.
My companions, red-tail hawk by day and owl by night,
they call to you 
as in the shin-high noisy leaves you tread.
Come to clear your head and
rake your worries into heaps to cast away.

Come to me now.
Days, months, seasons, or years 
no longer make a difference
for I stand steadfast, awaiting your steps, 
awaiting a word, a pebble, two rivulets of tears, a silent curious gaze.
Give me a nod, a memory to bridge the distance
between you and me.

Honorable Mentions

Homage to Wildwood Cemetery
By Ira Bryck

In a peaceful crowd
in tranquil hills
a bronze horse, survivor of theft and scrap
forever honors poet Deborah Digges

Next to Austin is beloved Susan
one mile south, near town
her beloved Emily
all called back

Edward Franke Leonard
Wise in Counsel, Loyal in Friendship,
Untiring in Achievement
is Appreciated for the ages

There’s the man who slammed his door
as we disagreed about development
eating while he spoke
still a neighbor, oddly

Lives forgotten but
our streets have your names
you built where we live
you built it for us

Buddha, who meditated in graveyards
would have loved these benches
and rural, parklike terrain
conducive to remembering death

When school let out, across the street
my son avoided boring old Strong Street
and blazed his way home
via this blessed land.

Years of life passing
fertilizes soil and soul
visitors breathe and feel
a touch more solemn

Appreciation
life reminds us that it ends
that reminds us not yet
today is a good day to live.


Morning Mourning
By John Sheirer

Rising before first light, 
quiet enough not to stir a sleeping dog. 

Four early season inches, 
wet and heavy 
like eyes that haven’t dried for a month. 

Snow shovel’s scrape barely resonates 
above the distant moan of muffled branches 
bending beneath a weight barely bearable. 

This driveway path is enough for now: 
jagged, black riverbed carved into white plateau, 
just wide enough for two big-booted feet 
and four small paws. 

Back inside, 
an empty space 
where her bed rested by a low window, 
the perfect view of falling snow.

First snow since her death--
shoveling a path
for no one.