There be dragons

There be dragons

 

“It’s some kind of threat.                   

Do you feel the hot wind?”

 

“It must be the breeze

We feel every day

Or at least from time to time.”

 

“This is dragon fire.

His hot breath

Like a hundred Santa Ana’s

Flushing us with its heat.”

 

“You don’t mean ‘flush.’

‘Flash’ perhaps or something,

Not a dragon surely.

There is no such thing

and nothing is coming.”

 

“Don’t you hear the beat

Of his heavy feet,

The roar of his anger,

The rustling as he rushes

Through the trees

Bent on destroying you and me?”

 

“Ho, ho.  You amuse me,

Lawrence.  You should take

Up sailing or flying kites.

There’s a club for Jeeps

That might be just the thing

To curb your morbid

Over-active imagination.”

 

“I see the glint of sunlight

Off its scales, the great

Wide swaths his tail makes

Through the forest as he comes.

I heard the villagers scream

Before he crushed them lifeless.

Look at his eyes.

He is searching for you and me.”

 

“You bore me with your incessant

Concern for esoteric causes.

The Sasquatch, the Yeti maybe

But a medieval dragon?  This may have

Reality in a fevered mind

But not out here

In the light of day

Where the hot winds blow and something

Like an earthquake shakes the ground.”

 

“Will you but look?  Here’s the map

And ‘there be dragons’ over there.

I see your look.  You think this

Parchment map is obsolete,

A medieval legend combined

With cartographic ignorance,

But what better way

To learn of this rising

Phoenix-like monster than the

Fear beyond us trembling?”