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With Liberty

We don’t have to be experts on racism, international politics, refugee resettlement or gender equality to try our damndest to do right by one another.

Birds and Beauty and the American Human Rights Crisis

Defend Democracy; Release the Epstein Files

6 min readOct 4, 2025

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A seagull in Newport, Oregon. September 2025. All rights © Heather M. Edwards

When I coaxed a motionless dragonfly onto my index finger I really believed I could save him if I could just get him out of the summer rain. He limped onto my fingernail and up my finger until he rested in my open palm.

We had barely made it around the corner and out of the rain, two steps onto the porch, before he suddenly leapt off my hand, like a small plane flinging itself off a cliff, and flopped to the cement with a dull smack.

Please don’t be hurt, please don’t be hurt.

Are they like butterflies and moths? Do they need powder on their wings to fly? They can’t survive without flying, right? To find insects to eat? I considered setting a space heater near him, but how could I possibly gauge a safe distance? What if it blows the powder off his wings? What if it’s too hot but he’s too weak to retreat?

I decide to leave him be and said a little prayer that he would dry out here under the overhang, on his own, safe from the rain.

He hadn’t moved by the time I went to bed, so I said another prayer.

The next morning, he was gone, and little miracles seem possible again.

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With Liberty
With Liberty

Published in With Liberty

We don’t have to be experts on racism, international politics, refugee resettlement or gender equality to try our damndest to do right by one another.

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