Your Mimicry Poem by RIC BASTASA

one day
you get tired

mimicking the
mynah bird

you only want
it to know your language

and to bait it
with your own style

you mimic it but it does not
learn from your
mimicking and you stop and one day

it looks at you
with pity and it speaks its own language


from the forest, which is
if you listen well enough

sad and lonely
and even dying

it speaks of a desire to be returned
to its own place

it is drawing to you a forest
a dark spot,

a hounding sound of its
niche

one day you
see the light of its night song

a red moon
a drift on the black marsh


and so you take it
and release it from your mimicry


and both of you
are finally free

and the forest is
one happy family


and the cage of your expectations
becomes empty


life has arrived returning back
your own tongue