There are many ways to ride a dragon.
To hear father tell it, what you do is you have to break it;
Hold on as if your life depends on it, as soon enough it does,
Suffer the days and hours of outrageous thrashings,
and by persisting end them.
Mother’s way is patience:
You love it, and you love it, and you love it.
You build with stone, forgive the accidents, the temper.
You raise it, let it free, are always grateful
When it takes you soaring among the clouds.
There is, of course, the usual way:
Find an old rider with a tame bird;
Do what he tells you, trust and hope.
And then there’s this:
Walk without a sword into the darkest mountains, and find a wildling,
A dragon that hasn’t been touched,
Who knows only granite peaks and skies of crystal.
Stand before it, and call it by name.
Watch its body unfurl as it finds its fury.
Hear the wind fill its ancient bellows.
As it exhales upon you the heat of a hundred suns,
stand your ground, and marvel at its beauty.
And love it, and love it, and love it.
Let the fire take you.
Let the giant maw swallow you whole.
There are many ways to ride a dragon.
But this one
is mine.