Monarch Chronicles

"Flowering forth, a tall rice ear
stands proudly above the mass,
a shape eluding its shadow,
its sound refusing echoes."  – Lu Ji, "Ordinary and Sublime"








7


Monarch at island's edge of pond
lures me into the mown grass of park
where the goldenrod stands forth,
a choir singing to sun silent notes.
As I stand for no more than a minute
the stalks are no longer barren rods
but teeming by young grasshoppers.
A damsel like a blue arrow sheathed
in between two drooping leaves.
A dragonfly lands in the foreground,
it's abdomen a replica of the dying
stem it lands on no longer yellow.
It flies off, circles, then lands over
and over again facing my direction.
It rolls its eyes upwards stilling
its proboscis. Then back down
to business waiting for me to take off.