A few days back I was walking along a worn dirt road, just another of the many lovely back roads one can find in the country. The weather was nice outside, warm when the sun was on you, and with a slightly chilly breeze coming up and shaking the leaves every so often. A few billowy clouds floated along up in the blue sky. It was a good day for walking.

I was kicking my feet out as I went across the hard dirt, perusing the open fields and dark woodsides, when another creature joined me on the roadway. A dragonfly flitted across the dirt low to the ground, stopping here, reversing direction there, looking so much like a little fairy frolicking through life. Sometimes it would fly high then dive-bomb back down low, for some mystery it kept all to itself.

In a few moments of subtle flight, it captured my attention like a master hypnotist. I found my march stopped and my head and eyes followed its every swoop and twist. I turned my whole body to follow where its movements led as I fell deeper into its fairy magic.

Then it flew in close to me, apparently as interested with me as I was with it. As it did so, it circled up and around me, and I swayed in response, keeping from touching it. Then it flew in towards my face, and I ended the spin with a ducking bow. As I thought about what we must look like, the idea of our small dance brought a smile to my face.

As quickly as it had come, the little dragonfly flitted back off the road towards a small pond, and it vanished with its touch of mysticism into the waving grasses. I was left with only a pleasant memory in the warm sunlight of the afternoon. But I was also reminded of the dragonfly's power, the way that it can capture the eyes just like a prism refracting rainbows of light.

I remembered back to another experience I had with a dragonfly. One time, when I was much younger, and so much more loving about the frail beauty of the insect world (a love that I have since found others trying to `breed' out of me), I had a chance to watch a `little Dragon' very closely. I was on a lake, just floating along staring up to the sky above, and a slight humming caught my ear. As I looked to the source of the sound, a dragonfly came soaring across the water. It looked so much like the sun reflecting on the waves. Similar to the way that light just seems to jump from crest to crest, it arced from one to another, almost seeming to move with the speed of light, if the eye was able to follow light that fast as it made its own magic.

It came near to me, and I simply watched it, amazed at the ease of its movements. Then, it eased itself down onto my chest as I floated there and commenced to rest. The fly was sleek and had a glossy look to it, the colors along its body were just like a rainbow. If it moved, a slight shift in the color accompanied the movement, and I was left to wonder whether I might also learn this method of playing with the light like it did.

I remember for some reason, that it smiled at me. How it did, or how I recognized that it did, I cannot say. All I know is that when you are young, you just know some things, and you take them for fact as if they came from God's very mouth.

Its message delivered, the dragonfly pumped it wings quickly and took off from its resting point once more, to put its fairy glamour to some other use. Since then, I can rarely keep a smile off my face when I see the little dragonfly as it does its dance across the rays of light that create our world of visions.