DRAGON-FLIES

For three years this lavae lives,

a predator in watery under-worlds

then in three short hours, 

on a genetic cue, a temperature alert

 it climbs up a reed into the light

 unfolding a radiant, four-winged dragon

to leap, airborne in iridescent glory.

So, the human lavae,

grubbing around in the cannibal murk

dandles on the brink of an heretical notion:

to climb out of the detritus 

on this wobbly ladder

 into the alien brightness above

• who knows for why or what!

It takes only a twinkle,

a stirring of the innate

a full turn of the spiralling wheel

to create a new idea -

a dragon to transfigure.