Poetry Sunday: The Ordinary

A summer dragonfly.

The ordinary days of the long, hot summer, the season of the dragonfly, are coming to an end. Leaves are already beginning to fall, harbinger of the season to come. 

But still the grass grows and must be mowed and still the dragonflies follow in the mower's wake. Summer maintains it grip and will not go quietly. When it is gone, these ordinary days and hours will be remembered with love. 

The Ordinary

by Kirsten Dierking

It's summer, so
the pink gingham shorts,
the red mower, the neat rows
of clean smelling grass
unspooling behind
the sweeping blades.

A dragonfly, black body
big as a finger, will not leave
the mower alone,
loving the sparkle
of scarlet metal,
seeing in even a rusting paint
the shade of a flower.

But I wave him off,
conscious he is
wasting his time,
conscious I am
filling my time
with such small details,
distracting colors,

like pink checks,
like this, then that,
like a dragonfly wing
in the sun reflecting
the color of opals,
like all the hours
we leave behind,
so ordinary,
but not unloved.