Poem 283

Something let out in a relationship that shouldn’t be let out and only with great difficulty is put back in its box … after which of course a precedent has been set, life does love a pattern …
… interestingly the relationship also seems to depend on the existence of this thing, it both needs to be there and needs to be effectively contained in order to keep things in a state of balance (seen in the way the bird sings in the cage but not out of it) …
… written in 1980 in Hamilton, we did have some mishaps with finches which probably gave rise to this …

( I like the image of sensing the cold, the alteration in the atmosphere, through the door key before even opening the door … )

Cage Bird

Our chill bird of winter
sang in its cage in the sun
until you left its door ajar
and suddenly the bird was dumb

coming home I felt the cold
through the iron key
up and down the chill wings brushed
and drew the blood from me

the bird perched deadly silent
drooping above our doorway
from then its weight was on us
and we walked beneath it always

until the day it returned
into its cage again
it sings there now in the sun
as if to deny the pain

but today I saw it flutter
just once against the bars
and now I grow afraid
knowing how careless you are