A-Z Challenge: D is for Dragonfly, Damselfly

I am working on a new children's book about a dragonfly. This is the first page of that book. The others are unfinished.




and here are two D-poems for national Poetry Month, by me:

Doubled

Birch trees lean over the lake. Shimmering, doubled,

white bark reflects pale streaks in dark water,

like postcards sent home from vacation,

like art splashed on canvas en pleine air

affixed with postage stamps, glued to your heart,

like love letters where the unbearable beauty

of this wild world is sealed with a kiss

and summer romance stretches deep into autumn

and beyond. The ebullient heart swings from bent birches

and drops into icy mountain water, shrieking

with shock and joy. Mirrored mountains rise

out of rocky shores to embrace waterfalls,

long ridges, your hikes to granite summits

lost in trackless wilderness. Fear

swirls though the gut like wind-tossed birch leaves.

The heart opens as if released from white trunks

to fall through yellow leaves into deep pools of wonder.

and a prose poem:

Dog

Panting from a summer heat wave, the woman sticks her head out the car window. She swallows wind in enormous gulps. Sky howls past her face and through her hair. She grins and sniffs the air, smells smoke. Somewhere in the city, a house blazes. Grey curtains hang in gauzy layers above the street and other scents assail her: burning brakes, electrical malfunctions, sewage, rotting garbage, woodchucks and rabbits. Hotdogs popping on a grill, fried chicken from a fast food franchise. Gasoline, exhaust fumes. At first, the woman names the smells. But soon, she flares her nostrils and simply inhales the kaleidoscope of odors. The inside of her head sings with smells. She barks at passing dogs, yaps at cats and squirrels. Drools. Hears the wind whistling through her teeth. When she shoves her shoulders and whole upper torso out the window, her husband says, “Down girl!” She spins and growls at him, baring her incisors, before she backs partway back into the car again and turns once more to taste the tang of barbecuing ribs and sweat-rich, skunk-scented joggers.

Mary Stebbins Taitt