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
________________________
Image: Illustration from "The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby" by Charles Kingsley,
illustrated by Warwick Goble
illustrated by Warwick Goble
Public Domain
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
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A wonderful poem, thank you.
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