The Clearcut

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley


Sitting in the clearcut on a mammoth stump
Waiting for moose

Gumball-sized scat in piles the size of eagles’ nests
Are flung across the cut, proof of presence
The mountains are lost in a bank of white cloud

While I wait for moose, small things come
A hummingbird, buzzing past
An orange fritillary nectaring in flat-topped goldenrod
A lithe red squirrel, spruce cone in her mouth

Although bleached-bone branches lie helter-skelter
Across the sick yellow moss
And some stumps in the disaster zone are three feet across

All around me baby spruce and fir
Do what babies do
Spring into a broken world
Limbs lifted, all hope, all luck


* * * * *

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 Writing in a Woman’s Voice. The site has featured several of her poems, including “How to Silence a Woman,” and “If I have loved you,” both of which won Moon Prizes. Melanie's poetry has also appeared in The New Verse News. She is working on a nature memoir about the Potomac Gorge.