A Vision Poem by Albert Ahearn

In midst of Natures bounty I espied
Aside a stream, a gilded gleaming cage.
Its tenant was a lifeless bird inside.
Engrossed in thought in view of deaths image
I deemed the death from thirst beside water.
Within the cage were dual empty basins
The one for food, and of course, the other.
It’s like a wealthy man who’s locked within
His iron safe, amid his heaps of gold.
And perishing within this house of ease
Of hunger pangs and thirst as time unfolds.
Then suddenly a strangest vision seized
My weary eyes, the cage became the bones
Of Man, the bird, his prisoned heart of stone.