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Life Arts    H4'ed 11/19/24

What is your medicine animal?


Gary Lindorff
Message Gary Lindorff
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Flying dragonfly, Sympetrum
Flying dragonfly, Sympetrum
(Image by Artur Rydzewski)
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You talk like a teacher

But your drawings are infantile

And they reveal your fear of moving.

Your crocodile is yawning

Pretending to be tired but

See how he sits under your tree

In the swamp, waiting with

The patience of the primordial

For something to fall into his mouth?

I do care about you!

You must realize that

Your situation is untenable.

(We should have listened to the Hopi's

Back in the old days (1995).

When I came into this world

I was afraid. It wasn't a safe place.

It has never been a great place for kids

Your crocodile notwithstanding.

He is just a metaphor, by the way

Just the poet's way of getting your attention.

But now let us study the dragonfly,

The only creature I know

Who can fly backwards and

Turn at right angles.

They also live in this swamp.

The swamp is not a metaphor.

Every animal has a medicine for us.

The dragonfly teaches us

How we need to maneuver and navigate

The swamp.

The crocodile teaches us

That, if we want to imagine

That we are stuck in a tree

He will be happy

To put us out of our misery.

That's his medicine - hard to ignore

And powerful.

But look closely and you will see

Dragonfly resting on his nose!


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Gary Lindorff is a poet, writer, blogger and author of five nonfiction books, three collections of poetry, "Children to the Mountain", "The Last recurrent Dream" (Two Plum Press), "Conversations with Poetry (coauthored with Tom Cowan), and (more...)
 

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