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Walking With the Wild
by Mary Jo Balistreri

As I make my way to ocean's edge,
the sea raises its voice.
The wind puts its mouth to my ear.
Along the shore, a graveyard market
for vultures: snook, grouper, jack, jellies,
one immense loggerhead.
Gulls skirl, keening part of the salt-
stippled air. Against the jetty,
waves chew into stone.

To walk with the wild is to slough off
the tangle and puff‐the week's gabble
of words, political, honeyed words that slide
off the tongue‐to dump the head rush
against groaning buoys, into the slash and slice
of tides. Here where words do not exist, the mind
can stretch and swell, surge with billowing waves.

 

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