DRAGONFLY
Come shaking into water, I
Swam foolishly
In small hope of
Summer’s final sunlight
To gild me,
Forests to frame me, and
The river
To wash it all away.
– Snow on the mountains.
Close to the bank, there were
Branches to cling to,
In shallow lappings,
– For fear of the depths;
Lifelines beside eternal current –
Ramparts, at river’s edge, of
Autumn’s tangled cities –
Guarding mud and lost feathers;
Crusted cowpats barbed with dead thistles;
Desiccated grasses; dust-brittle leaves.
– Submerged, leviathan trees; rocks’ threat.
Bullet eyes skim the flow;
Circle brambles’ proud hoven;
Land inch-perfect.
This is your kingdom.
Crowned now with
Fleeing azure;
Twice-given sapphire;
– Dead black.
The splendours of
Your holy wings
Honour your waterside lands –
Home of the burrowing righteous – with
A hope of beauty and life;
Light and sky
For all the tiny cousins
Of Ezra’s ant.
For me,
– Suppliant, sinner, refugee
Broken
By a world
Too big and smashed and angry;
– Exiled to flounder beside whirlpools,
For me,
Your sentinel beauty:
Salvation above thorns and eddies,
Absolution in a wing beat.