I was born
beneath the stars
Of Pisces.
When I was young,
I swam like
a fish underwater.
But before
I crawled ashore,
I lost my
twin in the stormy sea
Of our
mother’s womb,
Which may
be why I
Can no longer
drink like one.
My family
gave us each a spirit animal,
Mostly for
convenience at Christmas.
My
grandmother’s was an elephant,
My mother’s
a whale,
My cousin’s
an owl.
If we
didn’t choose,
One would
be assigned.
I
eventually received a wolf.
Years
later, I was admonished
By a
prospective girlfriend
To drop the
lone wolf attitude.
That made
me smile. Or maybe
It’s just
my nature to bare my teeth.
Besides, if
I had two wolves within me,
They
wouldn’t fight;
They’d form
a pack.
Earlier, my
family had tried to give me a dragon,
But my
dragons are fierce, not cute like theirs.
Later I
returned to that mythological beast
As my
screen name on a Taoist forum.
As Chinese
luck would have it, the year
Of my birth
is their Green Wood Dragon.
Which
resonated like a personal koan:
Who would
craft a dragon from green wood?
But were I
to stain my skin with signs or spirit animals,
On one
shoulder would perch a griffin rampant,
The
heraldic symbol of my line and my brand,
On the
other, a simple house cat
Gazing
skyward in shadowed profile,
Felicia,
Nyala, Smoke or Samarra,
Any of
Bast’s Chosen I’ve been honored
To serve in
the temple where I rent space.
I’ve always
longed to be marked by something special,
Some tribe,
some clan, some band of brotherhood.
Instead, I
am destined to die alone and unadorned,
An
imperfectly heard chord in this life’s ballad.
© 2025
Edward P. Morgan III