The Death of a Dragonfly

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A dragonfly in amber 

Is something to remember  

From a bygone age,  

Where horse-drawn sleds rust 

Words leap off the page 

And the flight-paths tread dust 

Through the sky, against the dying light I rage 

Commute the trust 

To a future war waged 

In the name of nation, engine, machine 

The tiger is out of his cage 

All bets are off-kilter as fiends 

Gear up for siege in beige camouflage  

Whose entourage is in your dreams 

Moving right-left through the frame 

Close-countered to woo the claim 

With evidence, nothing will be the same 

The aperture of greed opens 

The moment the covenant is broken, wanes 

The moon when the convent twinkles 

With candle light, a revenant rain                                                

Storm… the face of my beloved is filled 

With wrinkles and an air of sadness 

That belies the decades of prowess, still 

Lurking in his belly of the now-est substance 

A bitter pill to swallow, leaving promises hollow                        

I sat a little while, utterly entranced 

By the light breaking the horizon, fallow 

Fields beyond my sight’s periphery,  

Facing the city where my hopes died, sallow 

With the effort, and the dark rings under my eyes 

Testify to the days, strung out in the sun, spied-on 

And there leaves the train that passes the great divide 

Upon the crooked mountains, deforming the line 

Of the horizon. The time to die  

Came to pass, as did the dragonfly.