Land of Medicine Buddha
Santa Cruz, California
May 2, 1992

Egg

This water is murky with what is alive.
Moss curls up from the soft bottom.
Tendrils creep around cement
edges of the heart-shaped pond.

Twelve carp swim in indolent waves
ignorant of white bread floating
over their thick brown home.
A periwinkle flower falls, drifts

Under a plant with star-shaped leaves.
Its branch lurches under the weight
of a scarlet dragonfly with wings
of clear gauze. In the slight breeze,

She shivers, takes off, hovers, flies,
lands briefly on the thin lip of a leaf,
returns to the star-shaped plant
overlooking the pond.

She dashes about the water
looking for insects— drawing
circles and circles. For a second,
she kneels her spiny legs

On pearl blossoms of miners lettuce.
Rising to harass a small white moth,
she touches down on forget-me-nots
in the shade of the loquat.

Finally, her bright body quivers
— darts for broad-scaled wings
of a Monarch butterfly.

Winged Adult

I belong to a large family of toothed beings.
My ancestors had wing spans of two and a half feet.
I have shed my skin twelve times

When I climb out of the pond onto a rock or reed.
My wings cannot be folded—flying faster than any
swallow— folding my legs up like a basket to capture
my prey.

In flight, I mate, then devour mosquitoes and butterflies.
I lay my eggs on the water.