Compass

[catelin]

For my friend S., the man who sometimes cannot see his own magnificent wings.

Compass

I have watched your journey from a distance,
marveled at the movement of you, sweet traveler,
blessed and cursed with the burden of the
changing landscapes of your own body.

I have held my breath as you wrestle
with deep waters and dangerous currents,
always with such an acute sense of the cost,
marked with sacred heart, bone, and gristle
of how you are finding your way to shore.

I have hoped for you to see yourself
as twilight—the most beautiful and brave
time of the day, where the world would quietly
give way to you without question or judgment.

I have silently applauded your steady navigation
through streams of self-doubt and longing, never
being so vain as to see yourself—a bona fide prodigy,
to have become the man you are without ever having
had the chance to be the boy you should have been.

Comments

[notwolf.livejournal.com]

hn.
That's pretty amazing.

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Hey stranger!!! I'm going to be in Dallas (downtown) most of this next week for a conference. Maybe we can figure out a way to share a beer while I'm up that way.

[jenrieshka.livejournal.com]

beautiful

[sorrento.livejournal.com]

That is very beautiful.

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I was just thinking of you and wondering how you were doing. I've had a summer of ghost children...three awful cases in about two months. Your account of everything lately made me want to wrap you up in a bear hug. I never say enough or at the right time, but I was thinking of you and wishing you ease.

I'm glad you like the poem. It's funny, I wrote it for one "S" and after I have read it a few times, I can see how it could apply so easily to so many other wonderful "S" people that I know (and probably other alphabet people as well). I guess the lesson for me in writing this is that what makes us really beautiful and magnificent on an individual level are those times when the universal in us makes its way to the surface.

[sorrento.livejournal.com]

You are just perfect.

While I'd love a hug from you, it's my cousin and her family who will be suffering for a long time. I'm probably going to visit them again in a month or so.

I'm sorry you've been dealing with those cases.

[makhsihed.livejournal.com]

Wow...

This is beautiful, and I'm tempted to send a couple trans friends of mine to read this... because it's very, very fitting.

[slw2004.livejournal.com]

That's a beautiful poem. :)

[hollow-warrior.livejournal.com]

This was so well timed. I needed to read this. :::hugs:::

[catelin.livejournal.com]

Big hugs back to you and I'm glad to have written something that spoke to you. I'm just catching up on everyone again...I've missed whirlwinds of stuff!