A Blessing for Pride

Blessed are you, the ones who took a long time
to figure out the word for what you already were.

Blessed are you who came out to your mother
three times before it stuck,
and blessed is your mother,
slowly catching up.

Blessed are the butch and the femme,
the neither and the both,
the ones who checked "other"
and meant it as a whole theology.

Blessed are the bisexuals,
chronically underestimated,
still having to explain themselves at parties.
God sees you. God is tired for you.

Blessed are the ones who are only now,
at fifty-three, letting themselves
know what they know.
There is no late.

Blessed are those who had to learn themselves 
without a map,
who said this is my name
and meant it the way you mean home,
who found their body slowly becoming
the place they live now.

Blessed are the drag queens
who showed the church what it looks like
to make something beautiful on purpose,
even if the church is still figuring out
how to say thank you.

Blessed are you who held hands in public
for the first time and felt your pulse
go somewhere new.

Blessed are those for whom this month
is not a party but a vigil:
who carry names, who light candles,
who know that the fight is not over
because it was never just about a parade.

Blessed are you who have lost people
you could not afford to lose,
and blessed is the love that outlasted them.

And blessed, against several bad sermons
and one or two very long committee meetings,
are the ones who stayed in their churches
and the ones who finally left them —
each act an act of survival,
each body an argument
that they were here,
that they are here,
that they are not going anywhere.

God, who made more variety than we know what to do with,
who apparently thought the world needed
a thousand kinds of beetle
and didn't stop there,
bless every one of them.