Catching, caging, and making them sing
We track them through their courting ceremonies
hunt them down by the noise they make
clutch them tight between anxious fingers
We weave glass jails
sentence them one by one to green imprisonment
At day’s end we ferry them to city apartments
incarcerate them like canaries in their cages
and wait for them to sing
At first they are silent in this strange environment
we feed them with bread dipped in brandy and wine
and sooner or later they sing in their captivity
Now they will not eat
they await the liquor that burns them
into fiery tongues of song
Our midnights are haunted by their spirituals
rogermoorepoet 
Why the caged bird sings… Wonderful, Roger. 🙂
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Thanks, Meg. A true golden oldie, published in 1986. They are crickets, actually, rather than song birds, but it stands for anything you can throw in a cage. I am currently working on a selected. So glad you like it.
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Crickets! Aha! 💚
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Hence ‘green imprisonment’ … the children would weave tiny grass cages in which they would place the crickets before taking them home to lace in proper wooden cages.
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