It’s the hour
of the dragonfly.
Have you seen it?
I have.
It’s the hour when dragonflies wing their way in sparkling iridescence over baked green grass and sidewalks shimmering with heat.  They land for brief moments before skimming onward, disturbed by my walking too near, or by some inscrutable shift in the thermal currents around
them, or perhaps the sight of
some tantalizing prey ahead.
What motivates their mesmerizing, mystifying movements?  I do not know,
but they are incredible gliders that show skill and beauty in their every
wing flick
and delicate
landing—
skilled
little
aviators,
at once
fiercest
and most
fantastic
of all
flying
things:
a dragon;
yet also
the tiniest,
commonest
of things:
a fly.

It’s the
hour of the
dragonfly
—a time
of green
glass shards
and shimmering
things and
humming
wings, of
spring and
summer heat
rising high
with dragonflies
as they climb
toward the sky
or alight,
poised, upon
a blade of grass,
or skim and soar before my wake.  It’s a time when the common and
the mundane will meet for a moment for a fleeting flight with fantasy,
where dragons and flies unite
and concepts like structural coloration
shatter light into a brilliant blend of colors, all blues and greens.  When tissue wings like slips of veined transparency, become the things of fairy flight, no more the wings of flies.  When a buzz becomes a pleasant hum, and all seems brighter in the sun.  Have you seen it?  I have—
when the
clock strikes five.
It’s the hour of
the dragonfly.