Caged Birds

by Marc Grober

Anyone who has been a guest of the state at the Anchorage Correctional Center is aware of the dozens of paper airplanes hanging in the ceiling bars below the skylight roof of the gym, some of them dating back to the facility’s construction. While the engineer in all of us may marvel at the skills applied to achieve such feats, there is also the matter of the spirits soaring above the misery that immediately called to my mind the caged bird Maya Angelou speaks of.

If Ms. Angelou’s words bring tears to yours eyes (as they do to mine each time I read them) then think, when you next read them, of the souls abandoned to those sorry institutions, the cretins who fail to adequately fund those facilities, the systemic failure that our correctional paradigm represents,

And do something.

Caged Bird, by Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Copyright Credit: Maya Angelou, “Caged Bird” from Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? Copyright © 1983 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Source: The Complete Collected Poems of Maya Angelou (Random House Inc., 1994)

 

 

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