Winning Poem

Sonnet in Terza Rima

In the spring the war blossomed with the dogwood.

Together the buds and bombs exploded--

Petals were white as human bones. What could

We do when the tulip blood eroded

Our lawn. Lilacs festered in the garden,

Violets were bruised, redbud wounded. Coded

Messages of dawn deny us pardon

Our sun sits hostile on an eastern front,

Stupid, awaiting its detonation.

Surely we could have prevented the blunt

Exposure of violence. The very grass

Grows angrily now. We must confront

The hate-filled hollow, the vast crevasse

Of enmity. And peace cannot surpass.