by Kirsten Dierking
It's summer, so the pink gingham shorts, the red mower, the neat rows of clean smelling grass unspooling behind the sweeping blades.
A dragonfly, black body
big as a finger, will not leave
the mower alone,
loving the sparkle
of scarlet metal,
seeing in even a rusting paint
the shade of a flower.
But I wave him off,
conscious he is
wasting his time,
conscious I am
filling my time
with such small details,
distracting colors,
like pink checks,
like this, then that,
like a dragonfly wing
in the sun reflecting
the color of opals,
like all the hours
we leave behind,
so ordinary,
but not unloved.
Photo Credit: Ordinary Outside the Library, SEPhillips, Digital Photo, 2002.