CW-Narrative Poem

A narrative poem. It's a true story in the way that the was a bird caught in the band room the week before this poem was due.


Final Song

There is a bird caught in the band room.
As the brass flow out their rich tones,
She is fluttering about the lights,
High above our heads
Beyond the reach of one who might help.
Soft gray with
A white-rimmed fan-tail.
She flits back and forth,
Dodging from one hanging light
To the next,
Draining the final dregs
Of precious energy
And battering her fragile self
Against ungiving walls.

What drew her
To this place of no escape?
Did the melodies
Thrummed by the band
Call her here?
The window is open,
But the bird doesn’t see.
Is she so afraid to be caught
In this unforgiving trap
That her panic makes the window invisible?
Do the bright lights
Scramble her delicate senses
And blind her to the night-darkened windows?
Or is the instinct to flee upwards
So strong that she does not dip
The few feet to the door to freedom?

We musicians
Repeatedly raise our heads
And pray
For her safety.
The music plays,
The jaunty clarinets
Dancing their sound about the room.
I long to reach up
And pull her from the air
But even from the cabinet roof
She would be far beyond my fingertips.
A flick of the wings, a spread of the tail.
She alights for a moment
And is off once more.
Our final song
Hums slow and peaceful,
All of us harmonize together.
Maybe our notes reach the bird,
Give her some final life
For her to drink in
And take heart from.
This last concert for a dying bird.