Dragonflies

Hand in hand, with fairy grace,
Will we sing, and bless this place.
~William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

Yesterday was a long-awaited day for me.

Because finally, after so many days of weeping skies and turbulent clouds...

...of grey and dismal mornings turning into dark and storm-laden evenings...

...the sun broke through and turned the world into a fairytale once more.

The sun made its glorious appearance just in time for a flawless day spent down beside my parent's pond.

And oh, the glory of this day!

Fishing poles in hand, the four-wheeler speeding over the sloping hills and flat meadows, and the laughter of children flooding the summery air.

There was no day more perfect than yesterday.

I spent a portion of the hours curled up on a tussock of grass with the rays of sunlight leaving kisses on my nose, fishing pole between my fingers and a little blonde-haired boy weaving nonsensical stories into my ear.

It was a day of magic.

And as I laid there, gazing out over the beautiful blue water and watching the splish-ripples pool out from newly-cast fishing lines, I could not help but have my eyes drawn to the flitting creatures darting above the pond's mirror-esque surface.

Wings like lace, delicate and woven as intricately as though some magical spell had pieced them together bit by bit...

...soft and beautiful, iridescent and glittering as though painted with some sprinkling of wishes and fairy dust combined into the most perfect blend.

To those who have no eyes or hearts to see, they are naught but buzzing insects.

But to those of us who have lost our hearts to Narnia and Neverland...

...fairies just might be real.

Because, you see...

...I do believe in fairies.

They are what you call dragonflies.

[W]hen the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. ~James Matthew Barrie, Peter Pan