a thousand eyes

There’s something that rings childlike (for me) looking at and traveling down a small ‘pier’ out to a floating ‘dock’ in a body of fresh water. A chance to answer the mystery of what’s at the very end.

I’ve been fortunate to make this pictorial journey a number of times, tail ends of Laguna Lake hikes…….And, Here!!, I’ll let you copy my paper without having done the work. See!! Back in school, copying off the desk next door, someone’s childhood.

I guess I’d say mostly it’s dragonflies, out there in the sunlight: electric blue, translucent pair of wings, puff-ball eyes seeing everywhere at once. They do drive-byes and fly-byes, stop a few feet away to stare me down, then it’s bye-byes.

There’s birds stepping and sneaking through the ancient reeds, frogs splashing and sploshing off to a new privacy, a gathering of waterfowl floating and blowing away. Mostly, it’s dragonflies.

“Pssst,” the ever-present central coast breeze whispers so only I can hear — “It’s all out there, kid. Out at the very edge.”