Name of the Poem: A Bird in Front of My Cage.
Writter: Prof G.N. Saibaba 7 May 2019. (Written to Chandu, 9 year old son of the poet's brother.)
Music: Sad Dubstep Music. (No copyright).
Narrator : Runze.
Audio Editor : Rose.
Visual Editor: Shaida.
Scene Manager: Mozhgan.
Director: Hossein.
Program Coordinator: Lily.
A Bird In Front of My Cage.
A bird in front of my cage
fell sick in his nest high
in the iron bars of the roof
The feathers of his wings were clipped
by a strange disease in the nation.
He gasped and gasped for breath
and for a flight away from his confinement
Unconscious of his bare wings.
With grief and sorrowful eyes,some solitary
souls cried out silently.
He needs fresh air and a healing touch.
Others murmured: Its' too late,
he's half-dead anyway; now its' only
a matter of time. Each one of the caged
being empathized with ailing bird
helplessly and embraced him with their eyes
craning their necks up to the familiar
bars above their heads as if he
were their fellow inmate.
Many an anguished heart whispered:
He was energetic and spirited
till the other day when he built
the nest helping his beloved
oblivious of the cruel times ahead.
Now closing his eyes,he would lie down
in his broken nest day and night
ever since a stormy hot summer wind
swept away his loved one
and the newly born chicks.
If he were dead now
in his broken solitary nest
it would be a grief.
If he were removed with brute force,
It would be a death by a lynch mob,
but who cares in this callous world,
whispers spreads surreptitiously
and steadily from one solitary cell
to another by word of mouth.
Yet some others suspected:
He was a dreaded agent of terror
captured while hatching the eggs
of conspiracy.Others ruled out
the conspiracy as mere rumours,
and asserted: He was a messenger
of peace and justice.But a few
jailbirds cautiously stated:
The case was made solely on conjectures,
It wouldn't stand in a court of law,
though it might take years or even decades;
a lifetime is'nt enough to expend for justice.
Some said,he was a pigeon
while others believed him
to be a dove.But hushed voices
of nuanced minds reasoned:
nor a white dove, but a pristine
indigenous phakhta. At the end of the day,
there was'nt an agreement on the bird's
antecedents,whether of his crimes
or of his species.A day before
a highly placed mandarin of reforms
was to visit for inspection,
a mission was set up to clean
the dirt of the ancient premises.
Labour's long hands were made
to work with brutal urgency;
every speck of dust was swept away
alomg with the broken nest.Within no time
a great flock of grieving and shrieking
voices hovered outside the cage
turning my locked air thick with sorrow.
However,the dignitary, it was learnt later,
failed to grace his own visit
due to unavoidable circumstance
or as the hearsay had it,
avoided the ghastly incident's shadows.
The grieving air remained
infectious in my closed cage.
37 mins
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