Caged Bird--a poem

Annie (詹麗馨老師) introduced to me a wonderful poem "Caged Bird," written by an American poet Maya Angelou. The following is the first stanza, which describes a free 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."

 

In this stanza, I especially love "and dips his wing in the orange sun rays". How come Maya could come up with such a vivid image? We often dip food in sauce. So we can imagine how the free bird flies in the sky.

In the second stanza, there is a sharp contrast between a caged bird and the free bird.

"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 sentence "his wings are clipped and his feet are tied" reminds me of a photo of some black slaves which I saw in a book on Martin Luther King. To me, the poet is implying something since she herself is an African-American.

How wonderful it is to read a poem! With not many words but rich images, a poet gets his/her message across and touches the hearts of thousands of people.

At the following website, you can read the whole poem.



http://judithpordon.tripod.com/poetry/maya_angelou_caged_bird.html

What's better, you can hear the poem recited at YouTube:

 

http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=r0Hsjq1NR2g&feature=related

And if you want to know more about Caged Bird and Maya Angelo, read this page on Annie's blog:

http://blog.roodo.com/anniechan/archives/6176021.html

For all of these, I have to thank Annie again.