65812 Poem by RIC BASTASA

a boy looks at the little bird inside a cage.
it is perhaps thinking that it is too beautiful to hold.
to touch the feathers, and feel its beak and claws.

i am looking at the little boy's face
he is another innocent angel trapped too in the cage of this earth

there will be happy moments but soon when he grows up he will
make a sum of everything

i do not want him to agree with my negative summation.
i, too was trapped, like a fly unable to move in the bounds of the spider.

i once saw that spider inside my dreams.
it was about to eat me when i finally wake up.

so this is it: a boy looks at the bird inside a cage
i look at the boy's face, a spider looks at me, and then we keep summing up things.

we all fall short of what is expected.
the spider has not eaten the fly. The fly has not escaped.
Like the bird. Like the boy who is getting inside the cage.
Like me who is finding a way to open another cage myself.

we all dream that we soon shall wake up.