Mary Jo Balistreri: "All That Is Left To Say"

When the scent of wild strawberries wafts from the woods,

and returns the juicy-sweet meadows of childhood,

when the double pleasure of present and past throws me

this heady bouquet

on a day already fully flowered with gifts,   

I praise.

While on the cedar boardwalk through the mangrove forest,

when glossy green leaves reach out,

when tangled and twisted prop roots snare imagination’s

strange wildness, and warblers unseen call out in song,   

I praise.

And when at last the calm pond of the gulf stretches

blue beyond the horizon, sews itself seamlessly to the sky,

when it lifts the edge of its white-skirted flounce to the sand,

what can I do but praise,

and praise again

as thousands of filmy wings flit backward, forward,  hover

their last hurrahs, their last two weeks in the air

after a lifetime of water—

these dragonflies, damsels, their new resplendence

mating, creating—Oh joyous affirmation of life—

Praise and praise and praise. 

"All That Is Left to Say" by Mary Jo Balistreri. © Mary Jo Balistreri. Text presented here by poet submission.  

Art credit: Desktop wallpaper by unknown photographer of two mating dragonflies in flight, by Nature's Desktop.