Hot Blue

 July and the old river has fallen asleep in its deep bed swaddled with thick green reeds, each one new and unblemished. As we move though them to reach the slumbering, muddy stream we stir flocks of Banded Demoiselles, electric echoes of the blues of midwinter reflected in the long, slow sigh of the heatwave. They are so blue, their banded wings are striped with cobalt and their bodies like splinters of stained glass, metalled and shot though with argon arcs.