Before Flight

Some years ago, after seeing the wreckage of a commercial air disaster -- white-sheeted bodies, suitcases, seats, and scavengers strewn along an interstate -- I became wary of flight.  Liftoff meant the seemingly simultaneous rising and sinking of my gut, my knuckles whitening with my grip on the seat's arm rests.  Slowly, over years, I lost that fear, flew without thinking, enjoying the drowsiness of hum and vibration.

I thought about that wreck today as I crossed the metal bridge, where abandoned exuviae still held to struts, some dragonflies jerked on emerging from their former selves, and others grasped cement or metal while strengthening, coloring.  The lucky ones will perform aeronautic feats with ease.

But two Common Baskettails looked to be groundlings, not acrobats, wings crumpled and hardening, their chances of flight slim.  Fated by DNA or perhaps a dog's paw, one offered a crushed eye.  The other looked normal from a distance, deformed only close.  These have already crashed without ever having lifted off.

At least the children in that plane so many years ago had flown in their parents' arms and at their parents' side.  How many others, though, like these dragonflies, never fulfill their promise because of accident or circumstances of birth?  

And how many of us are like the scavengers searching among the dead's effects, thinking only of ourselves, watching from safety?