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Submission Guidelines: Send 1-3 unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Saturday, January 04, 2025

DIVING DUCKS ON NEW YEAR’S DAY

by Melanie Choukas-Bradley 

Art by Doug Pifer for The WV Independent Observer


Lithe buffleheads and mergansers
Newly down from Canada
Tandem dive into the rough blue Potomac
 
Wind whips the sycamores
Causing their spheres of seeds to
Dance as clouds race above
 
Next week Jimmy Carter will lie in state
And then Donald Trump returns
 
Today ducks are diving
Let’s just watch them dive

 
Melanie Choukas-Bradley is a Washington, DC naturalist and award-winning author of eight nature books, including Wild Walking—A Guide to Forest Bathing Through the Seasons, City of Trees, A Year in Rock Creek Park, and Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island. She has had several previous poems published in the The New Verse News and many poems published by Beate Sigriddaughter’s Writing in a Woman’s Voice, including four that have won “Moon Prizes.” Her poetry has also been featured on nature-oriented websites.