The Bird in the Tree by Ruth Pitter

 

O give me before I die
The grace to see
With eternal, ultimate eye,
The Bird and the Tree.

The song in the living green,
The Tree and the Bird–
O have they ever been seen,
Ever been heard?

 

Ruth Pitter

The sparrow and the peacock

 

 

 

The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail.

Rabindranath Tagore

Sea, Earth, and Air

 

The fish in the water is silent,

the animal on the earth is noisy,

the bird in the air is singing,

But Man has in him the silence of the sea,

the noise of the earth and the music of the air.

Rabindranath Tagore from Stray Birds

Wishes

 

The bird wishes it were a cloud. The cloud wishes it were a bird.

 

Tagore, Rabindranath

Never Again Would Bird’s Song Be The Same

 

 

He would declare and could himself believe

That the birds there in all the garden round

From having heard the daylong voice of Eve

Had added to their own an oversound,

Her tone of meaning but without the words.

Admittedly an eloquence so soft

Could only have had an influence on birds

When call or laughter carried it aloft.

Be that as may be, she was in their song.

Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed

Had now persisted in the woods so long

That probably it never would be lost.

Never again would birds’ song be the same.

And to do that to birds was why she came.

Robert Frost

O Bird of Light

 

One thought, one tune, one resonance-
Who calls me ever and anon?
I know not where I am.
I know not whither I shall go.
In dark amnesia,
Myself I buy, myself I sell.
All I break, again all I build.
All I hope to be mine, mine alone.
Alas, my heart is eclipsed
By dark and wild destruction night.

O Bird of Light, O Bird of Light,
With your glowing and flowing flames
Do enter into my heart once again.
You are calling me to climb up
And fly into the blue.
But how can I?
My heart is in prison,
In the strangled breath of a tiny room.
O Bird of Light, O Bird of Light,
O Bird of Light Supreme.
In me, I pray, keep not an iota of gloom.

Sri Chinmoy

 

Caged Bird

 

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

 

Maya Angelou