Lone bird on the barren tree

By Andrew Kai Hangsing

Lone bird on the barren tree,

Why do you alight, up there?

Amidst the network of dry twigs,

Against the backdrop of the sky clear?

Nearer, is the scorching sun not, from there?

Yet, for the warmth, you seemingly care not

Nor for the shady green grove swaying nearby;

This abrupt contentment, is it your life’s lot?

O Lone bird on the barren tree,

By choice or by lot, your posture

Runs parallel with my miserable own –

A life damned (albeit content) to solitude’s torture.

A lone bird on a barren tree

And a lone poet with no muse –

Both exposed to the heat and the rain,

To budge, though, we’d still refuse.

For, while flocks throng the shady groves,

The lone bird on the barren tree

And this lone poet in a barren land

 Shall still manifest the souls free.