Like Ones We Took
A walk around the pond felt right at the outset.
Five kinds of dragonflies alit, hovering, coupling,
all challenging subjects for a photograph except
a blue one, struggling, ensnared by a filament of silk.
I almost turned to say something, checked myself,
then freed him from the web. He flew before I could
loose a clinging strand from his wing, and spiraled
like a sliver of sky to the water’s dark, still surface.
Thunder announced rain. Large drops made the pond
briefly a sheet of discrete circles, nothing in common,
then chaos and tumult. Walking home, I thought about
ways I might have saved a creature against its will.