Dragon's Farewell


Starlings burst trees with silhouettes and prattle. Butterflies press to warmth on fence planks. Where the river ran over the field crop strands hold in neat rows, like green hair on a cheap doll. Clouds are big, the blue sky bigger. A brown deep churn of river rushes seaward. To the bend where the fallen oak branch had taken the form of a dragon we run, ungainly, over tussocks, splash puddled mud. The water looks flat. We stare for the rise of snout, the plumed tail: and keep staring. The form is freed, we know it: out of the fibrous wood somewhere under that flat wide water he has found his limbs and turned seawards and our hearts fly after him and he was ours, for one summer.




Comments

Geo. said…
Someday, when you least expect it, Dragon will burst in full firey flight from a stormcloud. lightning-lit, and disappear, just to show you he's still here.
5 November 2013 at 00:49
Lisa Southard said…
Or maybe out of a breaking wave! I will be looking for him I think...
5 November 2013 at 23:26
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