Yesterday, while I was reading in the shade,

a dragonfly came from nowhere, landing on the lawn

in the sun near my chair. Light coruscated

on the extraordinary gossamer

of its wings, the polished bronze of its body.

A sudden breeze stirred the pages of my book.

The dragonfly rose skyward soundlessly.

At opposite corners of our roof, starlings,

for a quarter century and more,

made their nests in gaps in the soffits.

We knew their curious whistles, the scrabbling

beneath the eaves, the soft chirruping.

This May wild bees nested in one of the gaps.

Dark prancers, they have filled a patch of sky

with a low humming, a murmuration

of glades, of groves.