`The Dragonfly
A
dragonfly begins life as an egg laid in water.
They grow and molt changing forms gradually in a process known as
'incomplete metamorphosis'. Dragonflies
molt eight to fifteen times, but spend a majority of their lives with gills on
their rectum, sometimes for several years, feeding and living underwater.
~
Begin
sitting down, with your knees bent and the soles of your feet resting on the
ground. Place your right shin on your
left knee. Twist to the left and dip
your right elbow into the middle arch of your right foot. Twist gently. If you still can, dip your left hand,
placing both palms flat on the ground.
If you still can, tip towards your hands, your right foot on your right
elbow or upper arm. When we encounter
difficulties, we usually hold our breath.
Remember to breathe. If you
still have room, lean to the side and balance on your hands, extend your left
leg, parallel to the ground. You are
flying. You are weightless. Breathe, and balance, and breathe.
~
Walking
east of Summit Lake, in mid-autumn, lively insects cross your path,
wily-nily. A small bee nibbles the skin
on the top of your hand and since you haven't said a word out loud for several
days you let it. It keeps
nibbling. It flies close to your eyes,
batting your eyelashes with its beating wings, nestling into the bridge of your
nose, and then nibbling the inside ball of the eye, the lesser twin to the
eyeball, that thing you never thought had a name, that you now know is called
caruncula.
~
East
of Summit Lake, midautumn, lively insects cross your path wily-nily. A sudden, golden dragonfly, black striped,
speeds sideways, hovers above water, speeds sideways again. You pause, your eyes, in all their motion,
flicker and follow. You cannot tell if
wonder is holding you still, or if marvel has stilled your lungs with
water. Its flight forked lightning,
swimming, slicing of air. Its globes of
eyes, the 30,000 ways of seeing in all directions and several realms of color
unvisible to humans, seem to center on you, human, as it now buzzes to you and
hovers, its four wings gathered sunlight holding it aloft, beating wind that
ripples off its face facing you. And
you wonder. You marvel. The dragonfly leaves, zooms up and East,
which is the way your feet are headed, the way you must leave.
~
In
the Lower 9th Ward, in New Orleans, your body was pushed through several
forms. When you went back there you
wept, nearly. Covered in a white sheet,
the Claiborne Bridge, that night where your hand dusted the brakes and
shouldn't've, where mist met metal and stole your lover's left knee, your left
elbow, is now your wreckage being painted, not repaired, in the late season sun
and warmth, not heat. By the Industrial
Canal, you can see something small struggling.
You stop and look, a brown dragonfly wriggling on the bike path. It is delicate, its wings beat
erratically. It looks like its dying. You hold it in your hands, it flies
slightly, you catch it, it calms, feeling the soft moistness of your palm. You do not wish for it to die alone. You carry it til its movements turn shallow
and then vanish. A friend says that
maybe its not dying, but changing.
Maybe it needs to breathe the wild.
So you find a bush and set the dragonfly to rest underneath, near the
ringed wattles of an abandoned sparrow's nest.
~
Twisted
in the dragonfly pose, Judy balanced on hands as though the human sweat of the
yoga class, the beating wings of lungs, lifted us into bright new form. When I asked what she knew about dragonflies,
her look deepened to crisp pools of iridescent light. The Hopi and Pueblo peoples hold dragonfly
as a protector, a medicine spirit, who helps humans heal from the wounds of
this world. She spoke of how on the day
her mother died, a dragonfly landed on her, soft and visible, and near through
tears.
~
And
when Brooke heard about the dragonflies of this poem, she shared the story of
her aunt, and how she had had a son who chose suicide when he was 23. She said
he had gained the balance of four wings, and had become dragonfly, and then had
the strength to visit her everyday.
~
When
I walked back to the sparrow's nest, the late autumn bayou afternoon heat was
close as i talked with Thomas. He had helped me open to New Orleans, helped me
listen to marigolds, to dance the unbound waterbeaded sunlight, our
throat-notes sounds and skins of sweet sadness, sweet joy. I returned to the sparrow's nest and there
was nothing. Had it flown away, was it
eaten, or did it pass onward, into air? Sometimes you get answers, sometimes,
and sometimes it's late in the day, you hear the voice of a friend calling to
you, and all you can do is turn your feet towards the dusk and start the long
walk back west.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
