Waiting

Like Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett's play -- who wait, and wait, and wait for the mysterious Godot, a man they have never seen and probably will never see -- I too have been waiting, but for the Blue-faced Meadowhawks, whom I saw over a period of only three days last year (though when I saw the first one, I thought I was truly "seeing things").  

They have not arrived.  

That is, they have not arrived when I happened to be in the most likely spot -- the dam bridge and run-off channel, where I saw them previously.

But other wonders await every day, and in the same spot.  Luck today rewarded me when, turning onto the bridge, I spotted something B-I-G at the other end of the rail.  I crept closer and closer and closer, hoping I wouldn't spook it.  

I needn't have worried, for there a confident assassin -- a wheel bug -- stood sentinel, and then turned and menacingly paced toward me as I took its picture.  

I backed off, but not entirely away because I could not stop looking: the metallic blue beneath folded wings, bronze shimmer of teardrop-shaped sections of those wings, tiny porthole-like dots along the upper sides of the abdomen, dense hair, bright orange appendages (including the deadly beak), fantastic wheel and armor, balletic steps of its hunt -- all so endearingly engaged me.

For a moment, I forgot about the Meadowhawks.  Besides, there's always tomorrow: same place, same time.