Produced by Dennis Camire

This week’s poem is by Robert Chute of Poland, Maine. His most recent book is “Excuse for Being Here,” published by Just Write Books, 2013. 

Dragons Fly

By Robert Chute 

Every spring on the shore of Range Pond

Where I live dragon fly nymphs (hardly

Nymph-like in mythological style) decide

To shed their stiff-legged, armored skin

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And jaws, leave the water and may (I measured

It today) may climb a five foot rocky

Bank, cross five feet of grass, climb up a

Post to handrail twenty-four-feet long.

Up the sloping front lawn to the rail’s

Suspended end to split their stiff outer

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Surface for it’s body to emerge, inflate,

Dry wings, and fly away. Three such brittle

Aquatic nymph’s hollow shapes were there today.

How can such dragons fly? If we, odd-formed

Stiff-legged inventive humans can, why not they?

 

Dennis Camire can be reached at dcamire@cmcc.edu