Summer Solstice Walking Diary

I finished reading a friend's soon-to-be released wonderful book this morning, and felt so buoyant I started on my walk smiling and light-hearted, happy for her good work and the great fortune she shared her writing. Profound thoughts about how to live, and end of life coaching focused me on enjoying each step. Just ahead a robin, carrying a worm, stopped to peck at it on the sidewalk. Huh. It was a gruesome scene. Was the worm wriggling too much? I refocused on buoyancy, walked past the pond, noted the milkweed blooming, and turned back the other direction toward town. Just before the creek bridge, on the ground near a small, deep hole were a couple dozen stones. I stopped because they were all uniformly white and round. Bending over I noticed the cracks. Not stones at all, but eggs, all broken recently, all now empty but for a little liquid. A father and two children on bicycles stopped. "What is it?" the kids asked. "I don't know," I said. "Could it be turtle eggs?" The children and dad moved along, the little girl waving "have a nice day!" behind. Finished my circuit and went back out with my camera to snap the eggs, and the milkweed. The noon heat had the milkweed nodding their flower heads. As I knelt to compose upwards, there on the sidewalk were two dragonfly wings. That's all. Something had eaten the rest and left the delicate lacy wings behind. Three messages of death. Or is it food? Nature is remarkable, brilliant and deadly in cycle. I resurrected the dragonfly body to remind me that life is precious, even when short and brutal, and we are united with all of nature now and forever. And secretly I'm glad there wasn't anything stalking me for lunch this gorgeous, hot Summer Solstice day.