We call our kids adopted from Viet Nam our little dragonflies, but I realized recently that I didn’t know why, so I did a little digging about the dragonfly. Here’s what I found:
Dragonflies…
- have two pairs of strong transparent wings
- have incredible eyesight due to their eye structure. Dragonflies have up to 30,000 facets to their compound eyes; each one is a separate light-sensing organ or ommatidium, arranged to give nearly a 360° field of vision.
- have an average cruising speed of 10 miles per hour
- sometimes called typhoon-fly, apparently due to large numbers present before storms
- were a favorite symbol of strength among Japanese warriors
- used to be called “horse stingers” due to the fact that they would often be seen hanging around horses (probably catching the flies)
- were also called “devil’s darning needle” as the result of a myth that if children didn’t keep their mouths closed, they would be sewn shut by a dragonfly
- do not sting or bite
- are one of the first winged insects ever found on the planet
- belong to the insect order called Odonata, meaning toothed one. The name refers to the dragonfly’s serrated teeth
THE DRAGON-FLY by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Today I saw the dragon-fly
Come from the wells where he did lie.
An inner impulse rent the veil
Of his old husk: from head to tail
Came out clear plates of sapphire mail.
He dried his wings: like gauze they grew;
Thro’ crofts and pastures wet with dew
A living flash of light he flew.
MIRACULOUS DRAGONFLY by Vince Gotera
Tutubi Milagrosa — a Tagalog phrase emblazoned
across this sack of jasmine rice, also in Vietnamese,
Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Lao, English, and Thai:
a concert of tongues, scripts, pictographs.
But the crudely drawn dragonfly cruising the names
seems hardly a friendly miracle: metallic globes for eyes,
skeletal legs from a giant mosquito, hairy carapace
like some gene-fused nightmare from a low-budget movie.
Abdomen shaped like a missile — a penile sting.
Not gossamer wings but helicopter blades: Cobra chopper
streaking over silky jungle mist hovers, cybernetic
killer machine poised on a stream of fire, molten metal.
No. Dragonfly out of my childhood is delicate,
a four-year-old’s handspan from wingtip to wingtip.
Almost sunset near the Rizal monument in Manila’s
Luneta Park — cicadas in full choir, singing a canticle.
A little boy in khaki shorts, a scrape on one knee,
stands still then takes a step like a tightrope walker
in line with the slender tail of a jade
and ultramarine dragonfly. The boy’s gaze,
his whole being, funneled into fingertip and thumb.
For a moment, a small universe
of utter beauty and grace in his hand, my hand —
intricate shimmer of wings, the eyes iridescent jewels.
Some interesting links:
Asia Dragonfly
International Dragonfly Fund
Worldwide Dragonfly Association
Children’s Book about Dragonflies:
My Life as a Dragonfly
