The True Story of a Boy and a Dragonfly

This is an old poem of an even older event. For me, it is a reminder to be open to any invitation that life offers. Sometimes the wondrous unfolds out of the mundane, and sometimes the child is more open than the adult in accepting invitations to wonder.

 

Dragonfly

It’s a childhood memory,

Somehow vivid as trips to grandma’s house

And family dinners on Sunday.

A dragonfly --

That ancient creature of iridescent beauty

Precise as a finely tuned machine

Swift as any fairy --

Greeted me in the back yard.

She hovered for a moment

Then darted to the hillside.

Returning to me,

She hovered again

Then darted back to the hillside.

“I’ll follow that dragonfly,” I said.

She floated along just in front of me,

Allowing for my five-year-old steps,

She followed the path up the hill

And around the bend.

We reached a plateau

Just past the pine tree

Just beyond sight of our back porch.

There, to my surprise,

Was a host of dragonflies.

It looked like some important dragonfly meeting place.

They were flying about in a great circle

Like a living, vibrant wheel,

Like some shimmering vortex

Connecting this world and the next.

She flew on ahead of me and joined the circle.

I stood astounded.

I couldn’t stay long.

It was a dragonfly meeting, you know.

                                                      ~ CK

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Image: Illustration from "The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby" by Charles Kingsley,
           illustrated by Warwick Goble

          Public Domain

          Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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