Susie Sweetland Garay’s most recent poem to appear here was “The Trees” (August 2014)
Listening
By Susie Sweetland Garay
I watch two electric blue dragonflies
frolic near a bush full of magenta berries
next to where I sit on the damp grass
one stops for a while
and before he leaves
I study the patterns in his
iridescent wings.
Don’t run from distraction he tells me,
embrace the surprising unknowns.
Play.
For me
it comes in bits and pieces
and required a lot of rearranging.
I walk outside to ask
the land what she would like to tell me,
what I need to know,
on a misty morning when water
seems to float in the air
and as I walk my eye immediately goes to
a gloriously enormous slug in shades
of ochre and grey with a
mountain range
of ridges on
his back.
He travels slowly
but his movement is steady
and I have no doubt that he will get where
he is going.
The sun is warm on my back.
I hear bees buzzing nearby and
I don’t know if the land is listening
but I say thank you just in case.
Beautiful!
Lovely. I wish more of us said “thank you” to the land and its creatures and took better care of them.
We all need to say thank you. Thanks for this reminder.