A POEM
BORN FROM GUILT
-
Vinita
Agrawal (India)
I look for him in the open skies now.
His Aladdin oil-lamp body
brilliant pistachio feathers
cranberry neckline
black onyx-carnelian eyes
Long years ago I’d got him home
from a parrot poacher
(how could I?)
expecting him to enjoy the cage
enjoy his enclosure in my home
enjoy his lavish pantry
enjoy his name Mitthoo
enjoy my cheerful “Good Morning!”
He remained silent. Still.
Ate nothing. Said nothing.
Barely moved.
His gilded environs too sophisticated
for his rustic claws
the food too refined for his curious beak
And he rejected the human tendency to
give a name to everything, everyone.
(How could I?)
He survived for all of forty eight hours.
Then fell over, the Rigor Mortis, instant.
Eyes that closed naturally in sleep,
wide open like fossils of deep hurt
This sleep too cold
to afford the warmth of eyelids.
I sat staring at his open stare
horribly captured
in the capture I had endorsed.
My decision poaching the blue skies
like a vile heinous net.
I look for him now in all the birds soaring free.
he who belonged to the firmaments
who I envisaged
would be a household spectacle
whose wings
for which I could not provide a span.
He must be out there somewhere
reborn for another round
of a free roam of the atmosphere
of foraging in trees for fruit
watching out for the hunters
watching out for me.
****