This month the 130th Moon Prize goes to Melanie Choukas-Bradley's challenging poem "Muddled Grief."

 

 

Muddled Grief

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley

 
How do you grieve an untimely spring
The precocious daffodil, the frog tuning up too soon
 
Of all the climate griefs
This the most muddled
 
The heart swells to the magnolia
Gambling on a spell of winter warmth
 
All the resilient lives reaching
Into the breach of a changing world
 
And our hearts wondering
Whether to break or bend
 

* * * * *

Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and award-winning author of seven nature books, including City of Trees, A Year in Rock Creek Park, Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island and The Joy of Forest Bathing. She began writing poetry during the pandemic and had the good fortune to discover Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice. The site has featured many of her poems, including “How to Silence a Woman,” “If I have loved you,” and “The Water Cooler,” which won Moon Prizes. Her poetry has also appeared in New Verse News.