compassion

It's taken me days to write this,
for the mud to wash off
and the air to clear enough so I
could say, with certainty:
I am still here.

Maybe the mess we make
is just temporary weather and not the sky
itself, its blue wholeness, its constancy, its wonder.

Maybe it's simply that your wings dip into pools of patience
while mine rear up like lions,
beating the air of oxygen.

But, now, breathing again,
and having survived our bumbling collision,
I see you, in resplendent aloftness,
alive with tender, easy buoyancy.
And I see myself, just a bird
who longs to soar above swishing treetops.

I hear our feathers whispering
with invitation and promise:
Come closer, love. Let's fly this wind together.