July 13th, 2025
Christel Maass
Redbuds
I’d long admired their tiny lavender blooms
spreading along spindly-branched trees
in the landscape every spring.
But today at the garden center, I admit,
I went gaga when I saw their leaves
fluttering on the nursery stock—
these trees were unfurling bright red hearts,
radiating so much love, I walked away gushing.
Christel Maass, who lives in southeastern Wisconsin, finds inspiration in nature, often when hiking or gardening. Previously published in The Nemadji Review, her poetry also appears in Bramble, Grey Sparrow Journal, Third Wednesday, Common Ground Review, Creative Wisconsin, The Solitary Plover, the Wisconsin Poets’ Calendar, the Wisconsin Great Waters Calendar, the chapbook anthology The Lake Is Mother to Us All: Poems Celebrating Lake Michigan, and other publications.
The Nemadji Review 