At The Boundary Of Symbolic Thought

A woman sees a dragonfly.

She creates a dragonfly oracle
from it as it rises, hovers
where she can point at it.
Says, “It’s a sign.”

A child, bandaged
and slightly broken,
takes his crutch to be a sword
and slays the dragonfly,
acting as its name recommends he act.

A man sees the dead dragonfly
on the sand. Sees the beach as
a long gravel road heading south
and knows he will reach the end of it
one day, alone, no one by his side.

These three
will carry what they saw with them
for as long as they live,
dragonfly oracle, adversary,
and talisman each moving, flying,
carrying them forward.

The dragonflies see it differently.
In the Dragonflies’ Great Vision,
everything is broken out, held in a facet
and each facet shares its truth with the others.

A dead brother
is just scrap. Its brothers brush
its existence to one side
as just another moment that has ended.

And the woman, child,
and man are just moments who have ended.
What they mean is irrelevant
to the dragonflies.  Their wings
are always spread.  They already
know how to fly.