Bird Heart

I know the story of my own heart, I tell you impatiently.

How can you not know your heart?



It is like this:

She is a bird in a golden cage of hair-thin wire, alive with energy.

It sparks to touch.



Forged from a sanctuary of wind and rain and tempered in light.

Beat with such a stroke, such a stroke as to mold my whims into feathers. Fleeting, flying, light on the air.

But one can only move with so light a heart for just so long.

Those who watched her fly, so alive, so whimsical and alert, saw her with envy.

And those feelings became real in the air, and from their hearts came thick black wires that knitted together

with despair and loathing. They formed a net that hung in the clouds reflecting back to the people

their own hollow faces. And so they cast this net upon such a small bird, such a small wren,

and even her lightness of heart could not keep her aloft.

She was not defeated though, and from the rain and lightning that poured into her cage,

she reached for a string of light. The electricity was alive. With such a thin golden thread,

she coated the coarse anger and soothed the souls of those who trapped her.

They stopped and touched their chests in wonder, and felt.

They felt, and they feel still. And when they have removed their own black nets,

I will be removed from mine.

I sit in my own golden cage, plucking a tune on the harp wires.

I know I will be free.

I will be a bird again.