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What the Dragonfly Told Me

Bend down, arch down
Down toward the glass surfaced pond
Not a ripple disturbs your amorous gaze
Lower now still to witness your birth anew
And with this strange metamorphosis the death of the human
Impossible as it is to see your own face
In the reflection transformed by this intense adoration
Your arm, it is now a stem
Your hand is a leaf
Above you hovers the dragonfly
A rainbow of color shimmering humming vibrations on cellophane wings
He has found your scent hanging as it is on a drop of dew
Take care fair flower, the shimmering rainbow hides a barb
The sharpened bitter sting of dreams unrealized
Ambition foiled
Hope given over
To sullen resignation
See now how lovely you bloom beneath the dragon
Good luck that he is to warm your cold solitude with his dragon’s fire
Yes I grant, you do claim yourself
But can oneself be enough
On this your friendless earth
Fixed as you are to the ground by your roots
Unable to flee from fate earth born
Your withering death
For the dragon has told me in his whispered hum
Only in heavenly paradise
Do flowers bloom forever

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Andrew Lawrence Crown is a Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Political Science and Economics. He also holds a Master of Arts in political science from The University of Chicago, and he has been teaching English, history, political science, law, writing, education, and other subjects at both the high school and college levels for twenty-six years. Andrew is currently based in Busan, South Korea where he resides with his family, and you may view and read his online short fiction collection, Adoration of the Korean: Expatriate Tales Made in Korea, at: http://www.andycrown.net/

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