Healing Wounded Flights
by Odin Roark

So easy
the description,
a handicap
borne by many.

Yet we lift off
from the gravity pinning us
to a history
we may not have picked.

From beliefs
perhaps foisted upon us.
To hopes
we believe are just over the horizon.

The flight is often ungainly.
We are laughed at,
pitied,
often scorned.

You hear, “Accept your place,”
while struggling to reach
the plateau,
the branch,
for a moment’s respite,
time to rest for the remaining journey.

Something they,
the spectators of struggle,
continue to be what they are not.

One’s broken wing makes it difficult,
but not impossible.

After all,
less than perfection
need not be defined
as one wing doing all the work.

Possibly…

It is the triumphant inner vibration,
motion,
and spirit
of knowing one’s honest worth,
allows appreciating what little one has,
giving power to make what one has not
less disparaging.