Still Young Poem by Elizabeth Shield

You are azure, like the sky and,
at one point, I thought that I
could fly,
up into the wide expanse
of your embrace,
but alas, my feathers
are not yet grown,
I am a fledgling still
too weak to try, and you,
are unreachable

And all my efforts, all
my attempts, have been in vain.
And many others have caught
your grace, and felt
the shining of your eyes.
While I remain,
grounded here, in youth
and innocence.
Perhaps that is my place.

Down here, I watch you from
afar, broad and beautiful...
and not for me.
Unequal; that is what we are.
And so my strivings cease -
I'll leave some time to grow -
make peace with stunted feathers,
dreams unrealized.
Maybe later, I will find
my wings.