here be dragons

The cats bring me gifts; they leave them outside the door: lizards, locusts, snakes, birds, eggs, embryos, feathers…

I’m never sure what I’ll find on the verandah in the morning. Never sure if it will be alive or dead, complete or dismembered.

So when I found this lovely creature the other morning, I assumed he was only in one piece because the cats had got bored and abandoned the game when he died of shock.

Naturally, I went to get the camera to take some close-ups…

At which point, he started to he started to pose for the camera:

He spread his wings wide to the warmth of the sun, presumably gathering energy to proceed on his way, which he did a few hours later. (Fortunately the cats were sufficiently satisfied with their official breakfast and didn’t come back to bother him.)

I’d never before thought of solar-powered dragons, but looking back over old poems I find that I have a piece called Dragon Dance where “wild windworms” were “treading the air, low on the eastern sky”. I think perhaps they, too, were recharging their batteries in the early morning sunlight.

Now, they come to me in the dawn-lands:
between dreams and waking
they call me to join their unending dance.