Stella Pierides

I went for a walk to the Dragonfly Sanctuary in the Lee Valley Park,  near Waltham Abbey, in the outskirts of London. Peaceful and dreamy, idyllic… though a different note entered my mind when I read the information provided about dragonflies: the lower lip technique of the dragonfly nymphs catching their prey, the cannibalism as a way of regulating population…
Reflecting on my experience, I wrote this poem which can be read both as a perfect idyll, with the dragonflies resting within a sssssh soundscape of silence; and as the calm before the next rush of the dragonfly for its prey.

The poem was published in escarp,  a text-message-based review of super-brief literature (www.escarp.org).