Blessed be the crickets and katydids
whose voices are a choir.
Blessed be the cicadas,
their song the sound of summer.
Blessed be the bluebird fledglings,
making their way in the world.
Blessed be the groundhogs,
fattening on windfalls before winter’s long sleep.
Blessed be the bumblebees
slipping through the lips of turtlehead blossoms.
Blessed be the goldfinches
gleaning seeds from coneflowers and Susans.
Blessed be the ruby-throats
feeding and fighting on their way south.
Blessed be the mistflower
offering nectar to swallowtails and skippers.
Blessed be the winterberry
providing for hungry birds.
Blessed be this late summer stillness,
slack tide between the seasons.
Blessed are we
who open to the bounty that surrounds us.
—
Ann Bodling’s poems reflect her close relationship with the natural world. She is a naturalist, gardener, wife, mother and grandmother. She has worked most of her adult life in gardens and on farms and lives on two acres in rural central-Pennsylvania with her husband, three goats and four hens.
