THE GOLDEN BIRD

for Angela,
who asked for something pretty

In the village they used to tell

of a man who in his old age

made a singing bird of gold,

and kept it in a cage.

No one had ever seen that bird,

it was always kept inside,

but just to hear it sing they’d leave

their windows open wide.

Its song was sweet and wild and sad

and spoke of a life so free

it filled their sleep with restless dreams

of what could never be.

“Oh, it’s a shame!” they’d say, and sigh,

“It shouldn’t be shut away.

The old man ought to set it free

to roam the sky all day.

The old man worked the fields all day

and trudged home late at night,

but one day he got back and found

his window open wide.

He gave a cry, he rushed inside,

the damage had been done.

He found the cage door open,

the golden bird was gone.

“They don’t know what it meant to me,

it was everything I owned.

Everything I ever loved.

Everything!” he moaned...

as suddenly his face lit up,

his eyes closed and he saw,

the golden bird on a golden bough

singing for him once more.

It sang of man and destiny,

it sang of peace at last,

it sang of what could never be,

and of sunlight seen through glass.

                                    Pavlos Andronikos

Published in Antipodes 25/26 (Dec. 1989), 50-51.

© Pavlos Andronikos.
All Rights Reserved.