The Wind Beneath My Sails
(From Between…)
The wind howled through the tree. I lay flat. I hold tight!
I’m not afraid of falling nor being swept away.
I feel the freedom of the leaves. I wish I could join their flight.
To be carried far and wide, carried without will,
To be taken to another time and place. To flutter with beauty.
But I am a caterpillar. My time to fly awaits.
My time for people to take notice, to point me out,
to not worry that I will eat their leaves.
I want to be a moment, not a thing.
I want trans as a verb, transforming, transporting, transmuting.
I sit now in quiet, holding firmly, trying not to stand out,
displaying what I am rather than what I will be.
But I sit like a colorblind chameleon,
trying to hide, to fit in, to survive.
Endlessly failing and not knowing why.
I fear not the wind but the still, the steady not the chaos.
Give me the wind, let the wind keep the predators at bay.
Let the wind remind me what it is to fly,
let my skin feel the breeze.
Let their eyes water like mine.
Let me howl with the wind,
let it remind me of my place and my journey.
Let my colors be a rainbow not brown like a twig.
Let them see me in all my forms.
Seeing all in each.
