I glance up and see hovering
one moment, darting elsewhere
then back, a haphazard discovering
of the next right place aloft to be
totally unaware of me and my delight
at such an unexpected sight!
Iridescently graceful. The sunlight on its wings sufficient magic for  such effortless
flight.

At once I sense the slight shift in my perspective: that reality distorted by my ceaseless resurgent recollection and rampant speculation both articulating each next moment.

I struggle with the illusion of free will; supposing mastery of the calculus of human destiny; when all I truly do is engage in all variety of fight or flight; or suppose that God might barter faith for favor.

How human to imagine my mind sufficient to know the next right place aloft to be when in fact I could never know what choice of mine might influence me to lift my eyes to see a red dragonfly!

Is it a mere insect? A mere bug all a flutter? Or does it bode good fortune and vitality or is it a harbinger of death and transformation? It could matter, and secretly I wish it to transform my fate, making me special, gobsmacked by the hint of the mysterious and sublime.

But it's not that. Not really. It's no more than the intersection of gratitude and faith - the former arising from the moment past and the latter from the unknowable moment next.

cl - 2022