Avian Mid-life Crisis
* dedicated to sister Nita and her parakeet
I don't need much room to sing
said the bird in search of a cage.
This world is just too large for wings.
I'm tired of flying from Winter to Spring,
who needs this mindless pilgrimage?
I don't need much room to sing.
And all those hours spent scavenging
for worms are too much in middle-age.
This world is just too large for wings.
Don't you preach that I'm forfeiting
my bird heritage; I'm sick of your outrage.
I don't need much room to sing.
I've sown my bird seed, had my fling.
Clipped feathers serve as lovely foliage.
This world is just too large for wings.
Behind bars, I can chirp all evening.
A cage is not a prison, but a stage.
I don't need much room to sing.
This world is just too large for wings.
Copyright 2005 - Dan Campbell
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(This poem is a villanelle. The villanelle has been around for about 300 years, and has origins in Italian and French poetry. It has a complex rhymed pattern, which makes it challenging by rewarding to write. What makes a villanelle unique is the repetition of rhymes, and the order in which they fall. The pattern is five triplets followed by a quatrain, and the first line of the first stanza is repeated in its entirety three more times in the poem, in Line 6, Line 12, and Line 18. The third line of the first stanza is repeated in Line 9, Line 15, and Line 19.)
