Outside at dusk I see the dragonflies
Like bi-winged Great War airplanes banked away
To dive at quick mosquitoes lizards missed
With tongues flicking in noontide’s baking blaze.

Soon night is regnant, tangled with her suns,
As I rock on a porch that slowly cools
And sip chill beer, watching pert mockingbirds
Dance-fighting on the lawn’s high muggy grass.

Still basking in retirement’s early days
Like afterglows of sex or good deep sleep
I mark the constellations, set adrift,
And think once more on first and final things,

The war dance of the darkness and the light
Enacted in the heavens and this yard
When crickets raise their mating cries and die
And Draco’s winter glintings ice the stars.