This month there is a second Moon Prize, the fifty-ninth, and it goes to Karen Friedland's poem "To the Trees."

To the Trees

by Karen Friedland

Mainly, I like your leaves,

and the knowledge that your roots

are everywhere—

burrowing deep through every square inch of soil,

seeking sustenance,

and chatting, apparently, with other beings.

So I let the blow-ins grow,

and now they’re towering,

seeking out the sun

and flowering,

providing us with infinite beauty,

protecting us

from the pitilessness of over-exposure.

* * * * *

A nonprofit grant writer by day, Karen’s poems have been published in Nixes Mate Review, Writing in a Women’s Voice, the Lily Poetry Review, Vox Populi and others. Her book of poems, Places That Are Gone, was published in 2019 by Nixes Mate Books, and she has a chapbook forthcoming in late 2020 from Cervena Barva Press. She lives in Boston with her husband, two cats and two dogs.