An Amazing Birdcage

Our grandparents fill the room.
Family visits are Sunday highlights.
Most doze in wheelchairs,
inert as drool drips from their chins.

A few converse with themselves,
smile with delight at their stories.
We might be missing a bestseller.
Exotic birds, in flight between worlds.

A tiny hummingbird, Ruthie,
apple round cheeks.
Delicate hands flutter in the air,
a Julliard talent, dances in dreams.

The yellow canary is Nettie,
a red hat with purple flowers.
Once a designer of Stars
sings "Amazing Grace" for hours.

The little brown finch, Kathleen,
protects her nest,
clutches a precious purse
holding all to her flat chest.

The Macaw, an Indian named Redmond
tied in his chair screaming;
"Mama, Mama" over and over.
Only Mama, long gone, knows what he needs.

They are exotic creatures,
once special, looked up to.
Now clocks are ticking, hands move
quickly as their time slips away.

Our world stopped loving them.
We don't seem to care for those
whose very lives gave us birth
wrinkles say "time done, cast away."

Once the sparkle of youth,
long past, the bud of a rose
blossomed and petals fall,
their stem still remains alive.



By Kathie Stehr