Waiting for Mastodons          

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley


The large fruits are massed on the ground
Under the tree, routed and grooved like brains, brightly chartreuse
As if waiting for the megafauna of their co-evolution to return and feast

The wrinkled orbs are eloquent in their non-movement
No one disturbs them
The mastodon and the mammoth

Had a time that is not ours, once shared
With the Osage Orange, a tree stumbling into the future
With its hapless fruit

Mastodons can’t return to the electric green banquet
So fetchingly spread for them
On brown winter earth
A mismatch in time we are coming to know


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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.