If I Were
If I were a bird, I would soar on wind and wing, taking in a wide world.
No telephone-wire-sitting for me. I would find the tallest fragrant branch, safe and not unduly exposed, but high enough to have a perspective uncluttered and as big as sky in this beautiful world.
If I were a fish, I would not be a bottom feeder, skimming the dark and dirty wave, breathing in the refuse of the world.
I would glide near the surface, deep enough to be free and safe, but close to the risk of wonder-world–that place of light and color. I would ease close enough to imagine what that way of living air free might feel like, and I would look and long beyond my watery limitations.
And I would be able to spot a lure a mile away, prey for no one, preying on no one.
If I were a human. Oh, wait . . . I am.
Would that I could soar above it all with a perspective wider and grander than the hemmed-in circle closest to my narcissistic self. Would that I could perch in the highest of places, almost unchained to the gravity that would keep me heavy and attached.
Would that I could resist the dark places and skim the surface, so near the light and wonder of that other, so when the day came to leave this weighted struggle, the change would not be shocking, but anticipated, the expected fulfillment of a glimpse so longed for.
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