The Feather's Weight Poem by Grahame Lockey

The nest becomes a cage -
two gripping feet relax:
the earth-bound bird kicks off
and we break bravely free.

We eschew twigs straight off
sharp to how their gapless
grid contained us, but soon
enough we’re building our own

believing home imprisons us
the once - when it wasn't ours
to start with. We fit comfort
choice by choice in, getting

what we want, our lightness
not down in the reckoning.
Possessions start mattering.
Their weight combines; we

manage their attachment,
heavy with what is in our hands
and out of them. And the root of this
instinct to break twigs for baskets,

this tyranny of stuff, its loading
of us down? Two extended selves,
their carried evidence, the making
of the matter worse, the bird in us.