Poetry International Poetry International
Poem

Chris Mann

The Dragonfly

The Dragonfly

The Dragonfly

Your lineage is as old as coal,
your life, in the swirl of stars,
a twitch of plasma on a reed.

Rafting down the Zambezi
I saw your filigree shimmer
on a boulder’s bulky sphinx.

The raft had spun in an eddy,
bumped up against a gorge
and grounded on a cornice.

I was glad to rest. Upstream
a vortex in the slide of green
had flung the raft on its back

and for an eternity of panic
had swirled me down, down,
churning me in its Charybdis,

until I felt certain I would die.
How greedily then I registered
the powdery, glistening bands

of crimson around your back,
each wingtip’s lunette of blue.
I dipped a finger in the river

and wrote my name in water
on the hot, eroded granite.
Before I’d streaked the last letter

the writing and you had gone.
Close

The Dragonfly

Your lineage is as old as coal,
your life, in the swirl of stars,
a twitch of plasma on a reed.

Rafting down the Zambezi
I saw your filigree shimmer
on a boulder’s bulky sphinx.

The raft had spun in an eddy,
bumped up against a gorge
and grounded on a cornice.

I was glad to rest. Upstream
a vortex in the slide of green
had flung the raft on its back

and for an eternity of panic
had swirled me down, down,
churning me in its Charybdis,

until I felt certain I would die.
How greedily then I registered
the powdery, glistening bands

of crimson around your back,
each wingtip’s lunette of blue.
I dipped a finger in the river

and wrote my name in water
on the hot, eroded granite.
Before I’d streaked the last letter

the writing and you had gone.

The Dragonfly

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère