Clouds make the January sky darker than it should be for five o’clock, and the temperature has been dropping all week.

After finishing a steaming cup of tea, it’s time to face the evening traffic. I wrap my turquoise scarf twice around my neck. A dull day deserves a bright color.

Tonight is the night.

I haven’t cut my hair in almost three years.

But it’s a new year. A new decade. I am ready to let go of dead ends.

And begin growing again.

Long, cold commute…
Running warm fingers through wet
shoulder length curls.

When dragonflies swarm, people stop what they are doing and watch. They call their friends over. They take photos of themselves surrounded by a blur of wings.

This is what happened one day at work.

You couldn’t walk outside without bumping into them. For twenty minutes, all anyone could talk about with any passion was a gathering of dragonflies.

Even people who bolt outside every day with their mind on cellphones or cigarettes or any number of urgencies, even the distracted and the burdened, were compelled to observe.

I sat at my desk watching the dragonfly watchers. I had noticed the creatures days ago when there were only one or two. My desk has a window view.

No one paid them any attention back then, when they were so small in number.

Two dragonflies sew
the seams of clouds, moving slow
across my window

There is uncertainty in the growth of living things. But there are also patterns.

All day the leaves were in motion. Now the pelting rain is here and they are still. Branches are crooked things, yet they are beautiful.

There are hints of perfection in the geometric shapes of cells and wings and flowers and fruit. And there is certainty in death and birth.

end of storm…
watching the rain get thinner
eating birthday cake