Sometimes, things don’t last.

Rewind—nothing lasts.

Our time in this world is transient; our loves are transient.

Dragonflies, symbols of change, transformation and altered perception—and a motif in my own life and search for meaning—encapsulate that transience for me.

I have known many kinds of love, inner and outer, lasting and brief, romantic and platonic, and I have sometimes held onto it too tightly.

Too tightly.

The dragonfly—be it man or woman, symbol or tangible reality—is a teacher.

What we grasp, we lose.

What we let go of, we also lose.

But the only love we can hope to preserve is the one we allow to transform, to fly, to disappear and to cross back into our lives.

As our fingers relax, so too do our hearts, and there—there begins our dragonfly love.

~

A Dragonfly Love.

I had a dragonfly lover.
I knew his time in this world was short—
so short.

And so we watched the sunlight sparkle
over the mountain lake
with tears of joy in our eyes
That we should find ourselves together
At all.

The starlight filtered through his paper-thin wings
Made patterns on my skin so faint—
so faint.

And he brushed the moon dust
from my hair
And I traced the emerald edges
of his shadow
with gratitude
That our paths in this life, so short—
so short—
Should even cross
At all.

Once, I knew a dragonfly love,
which flitted past my eyes so quick—
so quick.

It caught my heart in its emerald glow shadow
And traced patterns across
my soul.

I never asked him to stay,
That dragonfly lover of mine;
I watched the sands in the hourglass
fall
As we neared the edges
of Time.

We beat our wings
and flew
over the mountain lake,
And I knew our joy was transient—
so transient—

And so I let
it go.

~

Relephant Read:

When He Let Go.

~

Author: Toby Israel

Images: Varun Raghav/Unsplash // Sabrina M/Flickr

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