Bird Girl

I used to be such a weird kid

Talking to the birds like they could hear

Sitting crisscrossed in the dessert soil

Under the trees that I held dear.

Magnanimous to their stories

Their dramas imploded nearby truth

And flapping wings entranced my sight

Till I felt that I could fly right off my roof

But little girls were made for dresses

And birds were kept outside

And little bird girls distorted nature

With separation of their pride.

“Are you the bird girl that we’ve heard about?”

They would chirp at me and jeer

And I’d say “no, you have it wrong

Birds mean nothing to me I fear.”

So I wonder if they ever noticed

When their friend stopped coming round

Became solemn eyes in a window

Watched their trees get taken down.

But then I saw a stubborn finch

As it cursed the sky it rode

And realized that I didn’t care

If I betrayed the social code

Barefoot strides across the soil

To where once I would have played

And cried out pleading tonal calls

That I know I should have stayed

The sun hit harder in the absence of trees.

And the silence only grew

The lone finch promptly flew away

As I once knew how to do.