It’s the end of October. A huge emerald-green dragonfly is skimming across the garden pond again, having warmed itself back to mobility on my finger. Very slowly, its head had started to turn and my anticipation had steadily increased over what was about to awaken. A great force, an instinct, purposeful and fundamental, spoke in wondrous strangeness. Like a dragon in miniature, it harbored secrets that went beyond matter to speak of the riddles of life.
The message is never the same. Rather, phenomena combine with my mood and perception to create a poetry of life and real images of connections. Something emerges, which the dragonfly and I are part of, that has left the realm of outer nature. This story does not congeal into a concrete fact. It is just what life and I tell each other. And it calms my heart when it longs for a home.
The dragonfly hums like a helicopter as it flies off, with wings like finely structured nets. I follow its flight paths over the water. They seem jerky and uncontrolled to me. Sometimes, it becomes still again and sits on a leaf, like a gem from the deepest depths of the mountains, laying eggs. A few more days, and then it will die. Crystals also pass away and leave behind points of light.
Translation Laura Liska
Photo Gilda Bartel
