You must crouch between the molting cattails
    until your knees burn. Leave your hand open
    in the wet pond-bank clay, and in time
    they come buzzing over the water
    disguised as dragonflies.
    If you catch one,
    hold her wings, her sturdy joints,
    and you won't harm her. Or come moonset
    you'll see them in masses, ambling through
    the grass spears, pretending they're bears.

        

    Copyright © Daniel Connor Wood, 1999.  All Rights Reserved.