Friday, August 01, 2008

fly away home


This morning's sun glinted off the dew drops, catching my eye and making me kneel down to see what this was lying in my path in the cemetery. And then I was delighted--with its beauty, clearly, but also with the fond childhood memories that it brought to mind . . .
My girlfriends and I at boarding school in Zambia used to rescue dragonflies from the boys, as they were wont to torture the creatures with dismemberings and the like. We would do as best as our 6-year-old brains could conceive of to do in order to nurse them back to health, imagining them happily flitting off into a future of freedom and long-lived prosperity. Perhaps this particular wing belonged to one of those rescued creatures, carrying it across many oceans, years, and adventures, until it finally lay to rest in a little graveyard in the heart of the Southland . . . :-)

2 comments:

not said...

Your words are eloquent and beautiful..Have you ever read "The Power of One" before? I think you would enjoy it.

anna j said...

Thank you so much--I was excited to find you in my little blogland ;-)
No, I haven't read it: have heard of it, though. I'll have to see if the library has it . . .
thanks!