beat 271 - emerald

"When my heart is open, I turn into a million dragonflies. This one has a penchant for mischief. This one likes his tea without sugar. This one is painted emerald. And here's one admiring an Agnes Martin painting. Follow him, and he will take you to a cave of gold. This one flew all the way to Denmark and speaks all the Scandinavian languages. This one knows what it means to be a woman, and her friend admires her from a mushroom. I found this one flirting with disaster. He likes electric fans and bug zappers. Here's one who flew too high and met the cosmic bug zapper. This one wonders if he is who he is. That one thinks he's a dragon – on a fiery day he can burn down a whole marshmallow. This one wonders if he is only a fly, and identifies as such when the weather is melancholy. This one has his father's eyes. And his mother's. And his hundreds' of ancestors. That's the great thing about having compound eyes. This one here glows emerald, in the dark (when you put him next to a firefly). And you, and you, wounded one, you shall be carried around in cotton for the rest of your life. You are the special one. From your wound comes the colony. A colony built on a wound has the deepest foundation of all. And you, you little ones, you found yourselves a treehouse. My mother was a tree, you see, and my father was an artist. That makes me immortal. Or furniture. I soak up thoughts like paper, or pour out like a jug. I'm made of water, you see. And I am both the dragon and a fly. I have been caught in a spider's web before. But I have burned through it. So dragonflies, friends, you emerald sea of bouyant spirit, you may fly as far as you like, you may see a million countries, feast on a thousand brulees or tomatoes or chopsticks, but you must always know that, together, you are me. You, who sit for hours before one painting in one museum, you, who got so close to a stagelight you almost met your maker. You, the daring, the protector, the healer, yes, and even you, the hider, the hidden, the pale, scared nocturne. You, each, have your place in me. You are the visitor who landed on this city boy's life jacket and scared the shit out of me in a boat once. But you must forgive me. I did not know you didn't bite. I did not know you were me.
He confused an etymologist with an entomologist and ended up pinned to a wall. He just wanted to know what his name meant. I come from ear sewer stock. My uncle was a skeeter hawk, my great uncle a snake doctor, and on my mom's side were the devil's darning needles and the sewing needles. I had an idea I was grand once. Than I realized I'm just a million grand things. With wings. I have never been stationary and have never needed a lift. The air is my help and my resistance – what let's me go higher, and gravity is my rest. I suppose I know only ecstasy. I was grown in an egg but never trapped in one – the shell never released me, it simply grew into me. So I am a million dragonflies. And my best friend is a hummingbird. I once saved a whole hiking troupe of girlscouts from a mosquito. And I once sat in on a lecture by Carl Jung. Who knew I was the only dragonfly in the world with an affinity for French cinema? Billions of eyes have seen trillions of things. Twice, I've been caught on a dervish's tassel. And one of those times I understood atonement is a circle."


- Kieran Mulcare, NY
Actor