The Lonely Bird And I Poem by RIC BASTASA

my little bird
is still in its cage
for years
i never hear it tweet
a happy song

i know it has kept
that song for years
but i never ask
it to sing it for me

i like to set it free
but it has learned
to love its solitude
in the cage

birds from the fields
on early mornings
seduce it to come out
and fly with them
but it is loyal to my
company

i have not asked it
about any desire for
freedom
sometimes i tell it
something about the
blue sky and the
fresh wind
and the beauty of some
far places
that i have been
to

there were many times
when i left it alone

and when i come back
it does not say anything
about loneliness
at all


when i think that it must
be dead
it stretches its wings
rebutting my theory
that it is possibly
a dead resurrected

for indeed it is alive
and in loneliness
have learned to thrive

it taunts me sometimes
that we have so many things
in common
but it kept things the
way they should be

always in secrecy
always with self-respect
about our own self-inflicted
choices
about our honest acceptance
of who we are
and of what have we become

you ask me about loneliness
and i have all the answers
but try asking my bird about it
it still remains in its chosen
field of
dignified silence.