APRIL 1997
The Girl Who
Always Thought It Was Summer
Garden Without Figures
China 1936
Urgent buzzing at my feet
by John Willson
draws me down to inspect you
dragonfly with one pair of net-veined
wings stuck in mud by the swamp's edge
the other pair beating for the sky
your faceted eyes rotating
wildly independent of each other
black ants running up your body
that the Japanese named a pencil after
tombow--you looking for all
the world fallen
like bamboo bent not broken.
Well here we are
alive but bound
in need of a miracle even such a miracle
as I could deliver by
throwing you out to the water
for the mercy of a bird or a fish.
And so I take your wings
between my fingers
lift you out of the mud
fling you into the air where you
hover for a moment
shaking out a rainbow
among a host of your fellows
before you dart away
leaving me
no angels but in dragonflies.
© The Raven Chronicles 1997