Tied: A Parable

Remember when we clung
to the same reef together?
Before I was flung
out into the deep blue ether.
I was anchored fast
to the bright life of Reef,
and if it had last
would I find relief?

Gust after gust shook my hand loose
and away, far away helpless, aloof,
I swayed and I groaned while moon mothered tide
and whispers of courage from fish passed me by.
“You've done the right thing, you've let it all go!”
said one fish who added “Believe me, I'd know!
Though you feel lost in this endless parade
the current will keep you from all the charades
that reef life and shore life deliver with haste.
While floating among us, time never wastes.”

His words found me well, before I made leave
of this wise caravan who delivered reprieve,
I called to the fish whose years he'd surpassed
“There's no one like me as far out as I'm cast,
only you fish who were built on the wave
can survive these conditions and never be stayed.
My arms and my legs are heavy as lead
as they do not respond to what's in my head.”
“You think we all woke in this school ready made?”
He said “I awoke with no cavalcade.
But swim did my fins and swim did my tail,
I trusted this scary invisible trail.
Then just as I thought all was lost, I awoke.
And what I saw then I figured a joke.
One after one a thousand times wide
I joined the slip-silver stream! Happy, I cried
'Here is my path, and why I was made
no longer am I a directionless cade'.
Here's where you find me along with my kind
it wont come so easy, your journey, you'll find,
will give you perspective on things big and small
just listen real hard and you'll make the right call.”

I thanked him and waved as I spun hither to
and trusted the waves and trusted the blue
I wiped my head clean of any bad thought
and flowed with the current to find what I'd sought.
What do you know that wise fish was right
A heavy limbed bobble head girl came in sight.