Visited by a Dragonfly

With a little hope on its wings

It’s early morning and my wife and I are about to step out the front door with the dog to walk to the coffee shop, sit in the sun, and watch the day begin. The sky is blue. There’s a slight breeze. Low humidity. An August day like few others.

I’m out first with the dog, my wife still inside searching for a hat she wants to wear. I notice the outside entrance light is still on from overnight, and just before I reach back inside the doorway to flip the light switch off, I notice just above the mailbox on the house bricks near the light fixture a large, some might say, giant dragonfly.

I take a photo with my phone. I take another and another.

My guess is that the dragonfly’s wingspan is at least five inches. Its eyes, if that’s what they are, are big. Its tail, if that’s what it’s called, is pulled in tight as if a bobby pin were there holding it together. I’d seen plenty of dragonflies before, mostly in flight, but this one, with its little feet tight to the house appears content to soak up the morning, the angle of the sun, and the nearby garden my wife is slowly bringing to life.

“It’s here because of all of that,” my wife says, now at the door, gesturing toward the newly planted flowers, native grasses and shrubs only a few feet away.

I smile. She’s right. Nature begets nature.

My wife’s garden work at our home has been transformative. We regularly see monarchs, swallowtails, and a number of those flittering white butterflies. The garden also attracts bees and birds. A number of bluejays are nesting nearby. Crows caw regularly as the sun rises. The garden is also home to a few critters, including the adult possum our dog brought to me one evening while I sat on the patio reading. She walked right to up me, proud as ever, holding the possum in her mouth like a mother dog holds a puppy. I eventually got her to drop it and the possum, playing possum at first, soon moseyed off.

All of this is a microcosm of nature at work.

After days of news about hurricane Debby, the torrential rains on the East Coast that washed away homes, the smoke from wildfires choking the city of Portland, I wonder about my own small section of the world. I remember a few months ago how the governor of Florida signed legislation that deleted from existence more than fifty lines of state statutes dealing with climate change, as if to pretend it’s not there. And I think about the photo I recently witnessed on social media of the glaciers in the Swiss Alps, how they don’t look like anything like they used to. One tourist’s viral vacation photos show before and after composite images taken fifteen years apart at Rhône Glacier. The change is staggering.

Despite this, here in our little patch of the world, fireflies are back. I saw them the other night in the backyard, flashing a kind of joyous light. And now, this dragonfly is stretching its wings in what might be another kind of joy.

It’s believed that the first species to fly was a dragonfly, even before dinosaurs, even before birds. And over the centuries, they got really good at it. They can redirect on a dime and even hover, much like a hummingbird. This makes them incredible hunters of mosquitoes and flies, snatching them out of the air like magic. And the lore is deep. The dragonfly is an important symbol of victory in battle in Japan, their images are found on military uniforms. In the Middle Ages, Europeans associated the dragonfly with spirits. In some Native American cultures, dragonflies represent purity and invincibility. And in Celtic lore, the dragonfly symbolizes transformation, self-realization, and a keen understanding of the meaning of life.

“What a beautiful thing,” I say, with one last look before we walk off.

We head for the coffee shop and return in little over an hour. I step toward the front door, hoping maybe the dragonfly is still there. But, of course, it has flown away. It has its rounds to make, the garden to consider, a life to live. But for a few minutes this morning, I’d like to believe that the dragonfly came to us to thank my wife for her garden, to prove that maybe the climate hasn’t yet gone to hell, and that there’s a tiny bit of hope riding on its wings.

---

David W. Berner is the author of several books of award-winning fiction and memoir. His latest, Daylight Saving Time is available now.