Dragonfly Ballet

Dragonfly Ballet
by
Robin Hall

Butterfly Ballet sounded like a nice title too but what I saw was dragonflies. I was taking my daily walk and was on the way home, when I saw this marvel. I saw it before I imagine but missed it completely.

There is a small park downtown with running water pools. The dragonflies were in the grassy area near the pools but not in the next grassy section. They stayed within the boundaries of the sidewalks, an area not 400 square feet.

I don't see quickly enough perhaps and a high speed camera would help but it certainly looked like a ballet to me. A group of 6 seemed to stay together much of the time while others soared out towards the boundaries, the sidewalks, only sometimes actually going over them. The outriders would then fly back to the group and sail round and round.

I was "in a hurry", on my walk, taking my exercise and didn't stay for this aerial ballet but I knew I should have stayed. Why are we so busy that we miss what we are really looking for, beauty?

You could pay lots of money, dress up, sit in a fine theatre and not see anything so wonderful, yet I passed up my chance for observing natural splendor just to finish my exercise. I knew I would write about it, try to remember all the moves I did see but that is not the same is it?

When is the "right time" for beauty? When do we slow ourselves and have what we want rather than feeling lonely and left out? I think I let myself down today, lost an opportunity.

Yet, there are other beautiful things out there. Beauty on beauty awaits us if we take time to notice. Will I stop and watch the ballet next time? Will you join me? We shall see...