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.