by Melanie Choukas-Bradley
Here in Washington, DC
Where we have some actual swamps
Glorious muddy places it would be criminal to drain
Skunk Cabbage flowers
Are bursting through the ice and snow
Generating their own heat
Their meat-red spathes
Coddling round golden spadices
Tricking carrion flies to pollinate them
Here at the Lunar New Year
Let’s make like the Skunk Cabbage
Thermogenesis!
Author’s note: I submitted this poem hours before the January 29th plane crash in Washington, DC. My heart goes out to the family and friends of everyone connected with this tragedy, to the city of Wichita, Kansas, and to my own city, where creative resilience is needed now more than ever.
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.