I am That

A black drone beetle, big as a flying cork …

A black drone beetle, big as a flying cork
Buzzed by a pink hibiscus flower outside my front gate
While I sat, trying to write,
And the feeling of admiration shot right through me
With sudden intensity, the feeling of friendship, instant and pure,
And I felt a line of knowing open between us,
Me and that friendly, hairy bug
"I love you" – Not as words, but as a direct feeling
Connecting us for that instant, and it seemed
He was watching me too.

Later that afternoon I began a moving meditation,
The form of Tai Chi Qigong, on the patch of grass at the back,
And again I saw a drone beetle,
Impossible to know if he was the same one,
But as I moved,
He came to fly around my head,
And we began to move together in a kind of dance.

He circled and withdrew, as if the vibrations around me
Were some kind of invisible flower
And I sensed the same feeling again: 
bubbling joy.

So we danced a strange spontaneous dance
That must have lasted half an hour.
The drone flew closer, circling with the motion of
My arms, and I followed the curve of his flight,
Filled with inner laughter.
I thought he would move away, but he kept returning,
Again and again, coming closer and closer, then 
Playfully shooting off, and circling back again.
I could feel the energy in the palms of my hands
Glowing and radiating, and I sensed he could
Feel that vibration, from the way he reacted,
Bouncing higher into the air as I pushed,
Sinking closer as I pulled.

The neighbor's cat came and rubbed at my ankles,
As she often does, and I expected the beetle to
Move away, but our strange dance continued,
The three of us in synchronicity,

And all of nature shone 
As we danced together
In the afternoon sun.