Healing & the African River Martin

For Human Being, Sonia, Annie, myself, and for _____.

.

You may have seen this before. I recently shared this poem with a blog friend. I told her that when I wrote this I was filled with both foreboding and hope. I remember both feelings so clearly: I had begun to accept the inevitability of distance, but I also was secure in the endurance and flight of love.
.

I was wrong.

.

What I believed then is beyond crumbles now, a year later. Have you ever had to face letting go of some one or some circumstance you thought would be part of your life forever? It's no fun. It's confusing, sad, depressing, shocking.

.

And yet. Love has its own strength. It can survive in the harshest circumstance, even with broken wings and barren ground. I'll let the poem explain the rest.

.
Wounded Bird
.
Part 1
.
A swallow can fly miles, from treetop to ocean cliff,
The wind's undertow buoyantly gliding her
To a resting place of warm possibility..
.
She is free, lifted higher by duty and family,
Not a thought outside of weather and wind,
Acceptance and choice safely within her span.
.
But then, jolted in flight,
her heart pumped deep
And she is transformed,
.
The unknown and unfamiliar
In that very moment,
A broken wing reclaiming
.
Something lost and ancient
Spiraling deep and desperate
Into the habitat of hidden.
.
Some species heal their wings
In solitude, licking and lying
In a nest of thin twigs
.
Healing from within
Until they can fly again,
To and from home.
.
But other species do not heal
And they tuck that wing
Underneath themselves,
.
Landlocked and less,
The natural order
Injured inside and out.
.
That species will push on
Practicing, praying, pretending
That wings are but a crutch;
.
Meanwhile hoping that reverse gravity
May rocket them up and open them wide,
Heedfully whole to fly again.

Part 2 (My Side)
.
I fly from necessity
Hovering over leafy trees and endless water,
Following an inestimable path from home
.
Only to return again,
Where I’ll find my roots and rhythm
Deeply tucked in grainy sand.
.
I do not question why I do this--
This destiny of family and fate--
What I cannot fathom I will not change.
.
My twelve feather tail and meager wing span
Weigh in below two ounces,
Not enough for my survival
.
And yet I maneuver and endure,
I doggedly sing my song
And tuck my broken wing
.
Under my expanding and rapid chest
Until I know if
I might fly again.
.
If I should die here
Unable to lift myself beyond this place
I will fly anyway
.
Straight to this indomitable future
Where I will be an African River Martin
tending and fending
.
Reaching still and always,
Weightless in my belief
That I was born for just this moment.