Speaking of which, yesterday I found a dragonfly who had lost most of one of her four wings and was all but dead. I was so saddened. I wanted to help. I couldn't. Both I and my older daughter wanted to be "bug doctors" when we were children. Maybe that feeling doesn't go away. I moved the dragonfly first from our pond, where it was floating, to the cement, then out of the sun. It was strange and beautiful, even in its broken state. Which reminded me of the world. I had the same helpless, it's-too-far-gone feeling with this alien-eyed insect that I sometimes do with the planet.
It reminded me of the poet Adam Zagajewski's beautiful poem, here translated by Clare Cavanagh:
Try to Praise the Mutilated World
Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.
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