Damselfly, Trout, Heron

By John Engels 1931–2007 John Engels

The damselfly folds its wings

over its body when at rest. Captured,

it should not be killed

in cyanide, but allowed to die

slowly: then the colors,

especially the reds and blues,

will last. In the hand

it crushes easily into a rosy

slime. Its powers of flight

are weak. The trout

feeds on the living damselfly.

The trout leaps up from the water,

and if there is sun you see

the briefest shiver of gold,

and then the river again.

When the trout dies

it turns its white belly

to the mirror of the sky.

The heron fishes for the trout

in the gravelly shallows on the far

side of the stream. The heron

is the exact blue of the shadows

the sun makes of trees on water.

When you hold the heron most clearly

in your eye, you are least certain

it is there. When the blue heron dies,

it lies beyond reach

on the far side of the river.

John Engels, “Damselfly, Trout, Heron” from Weather-Fear: New and Selected Poems (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 1983). Copyright © 1983 by John Engels. Used with the permission of the author.

Source: Weather-Fear: New and Selected Poems 1958-1982 (1983)

Biography

John Engels grew up in South Bend, Indiana. He earned an AB in English from the University of Notre Dame, served in the US Navy for three years, attended University College, Dublin, and received an MFA from the University of Iowa in 1957. Engels published over 10 collections of poetry, among them The Homer Mitchell Place (1968), Weather-Fear: New and Selected Poems 1958–1982 (1983), Walking to Cootehill: New and Selected Poems, . . .

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