A poem for this time of year – the end of summer, as it slowly transforms into autumn. Written at Unicamp, several years ago, on an early morning walk.
Journey with the Dragonflies
By Helen Iacovino
to reclaim what I have forgotten
I enter the world of the dragonflies,
I follow the footsteps of many dead people,
something is coming unleashed in the dawn.
all around me acorns are falling
as earth slowly turns towards autumn,
with the last strong sunrays creating mists on the water
and the odd green leaf fluttering down –
this is the season of the goddess returning,
returning to reseed & returning to ripen.
through overgrown brush I thought I saw
the path leading to one of the loon’s secret places,
but then the paths all together converged in the forest
over the leaf-falls of many dead winters –
not all alone, I am never alone,
there always is something calling.
the mist moves like smoke and from nearby rushes
comes the mystery of a furious splashing,
then on the still path just my own footsteps falling.
falling, falling – the season is falling & summer is fading,
to emerge on the underside of the morning.
it remains, it remains – the sound & the water,
the glassy-eyed surface, the fire of the sun-star
calling to the flat water, and mists light as air, & earth waiting in wonder –
this day & all days, when dead people were walking,
the same world, the same squirrels, the flat glass of water –
then the loon like a conch shell
calls the frogs to awaken.
where is the spot to best see the real world –
to clearly see what the sky has to offer,
to find the berries waiting for me –
all paths converge over dead leaves of past winters,
all places are one, it is all the same water,
& the mists rushing to meet it,
to become air floating on water,
lit by the sun’s fire as pinecones are falling,
& all around me frogs croaking, squirrels stirring,
as everything becomes only one river.
I walk among tree stumps, I walk through the meadow,
I walk to the hilltop to feel its blazing sunshine,
this now is the real world, the sky pulled to all corners –
then to the songs of the crickets & the cries of the mallards
I turn on the path through soft dappled sunshine
& slowly through trees I return with my vision.
© Helen Iacovino
Published in the Canadian Unitarian Council’s anthology Shoreline: Water Poems
and in the Unicamp of Ontario booklet Unicamp is Our Muse
Helen Iacovino - Poetry Etc. 