you were always younger than me.
but in many ways always braver.
your journey different and my
eye blind to your travails.
but you stood tall through it all.
through the slings and arrows
of outrageous opinions.
children can be mean.
though sticks and stones can
break bones, words can be more
hurtful.
and i was navel gazing,
climbing the rocky cliffs of
my own homemade misfortunes.
but the lens of history
is rose colored and kind.
the years i see our paths
so often intertwined.
friends now and siblings still.
my arrogance sanded soft by the
old workman, mister time.
the heart grateful now for the
fused bonds of blood.
no bloodletting but the warmed
hearth of a beating heart.
an orbit, an ocular lens of time.
i see it clearly now.
the precious years slipping by.
i grasp for more like a drowning
man gasps for air.
to more journeys more closely
intertwined upon this colorful
fabric of time.
to you who has held the familial
chain unbroken and steady during
all the whirlwinds and the eddies.
my sister, my friend, my rock
of gibraltar at the other end.