blue skies poetry

(at Gaetz Lakes Sanctuary in Red Deer)

I once saw a pond
covered with damsel flies,
the Boreal Bluet,
thousands of them
packed so closely together
the surface of the water
was a shimmering sapphire
under the reeling sun.

It was quiet in the forest
except for the cascading notes
of a Sora Rail.
The muskrat,
luxurious in fur,
kept quiet in her lodge
near the cattails.

If you had been there
you would no longer
argue whether
there is
or
is not
a God.

You would know
what matters is
the red eye of the loon,
the scalloped wings of a crow
cutting through air
precisely as scissors,
the rough roots of trees
clutching the earth like fists,
and the collective transcendence
of damsel flies
more beautiful than hope.

~ Marlene Dean

Marlene Dean has lived in Alberta since 1970. A teacher, she has taught in the public school system and at the University of Lethbridge. Her writing has appeared in publications such as the ATA newsletter and the Lethbridge Herald, Tesseracts 5 and Writing the Land: Alberta Through its Poets. Currently, Marlene Dean is co-producer of “Stone Soup Anthology” an audio program broadcast nationally by the VoicePrint Broadcasting Service.

Filed under: Marlene Dean by akublik Date 2 March, 2009