A Day of Gulls and Ghost Trees

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley


Lapping water on rock
Simmering dry beech leaves
Floodwater in the dead of winter
If winter can still be called dead

I come to the river above the falls
to see the diving ducks
The lithe buffleheads, the stylish mergansers

But divers are few
On this wild water day
Mostly geese and gulls beneath the ghost trees
Their whitened limbs touching cloud

I climb out of the floodplain forest
And into the upland woods
Lying down on a fallen tulip tree

The kinglets, titmice and winter wrens
Treat me like an elder Cinderella
Flitting about, tiny and gentle
As so many forgotten things are


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Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a naturalist and award-winning author of seven nature books, including City of Trees and A Year in Rock Creek Park. Her book, Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons will be released in June. Melanie 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,” “The Water Cooler,” and “Muddled Grief,” which won Moon Prizes. Her poetry has also appeared in New Verse News.