DRAGONFLIES IN DAHOMEY Comments

For Jochen Lempert
That's the strange thing about existence:
One only sees familiar forms of life,
Fauna and flora at the kitchen window,
Walking in the woods and at the lake.

And yet there are dragonflies in Dahomey. There
In their world of green they lead a different life.
The depths of the jungle, where no one goes.
Turn, where they alight as stones of jade,
Into the bright gems of jewellery shop displays.

Your lot though is the bridle path beyond
The town with its dandelions, a mouse -
A single diorama painted to the horizon
In those same old slightly muted tones.
In close up: Dürer's Great Piece of Turf.

Out there in pink and fire-red they mimic
Nature's fleshy jaws, play at being carnivores.
There, larger than life, in lavish number, sprawls
A life that hums and sucks with other climes.

Those ugly swellings, bouts of fever are the
Proof: that we didn't share the same hold-space
On Noah's Ark. In our bloodstreams different
Climates race, governed by distance from the sun.
Out there fish fly through the ocean spray:
Here at home the dock leaf and the blackbird.
...
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