By: Hanyan Zhang

In a realm where the moon’s silver kiss

Adorned the night,

A mystical tale

Of enchantment and dreams take flight.

A land of poetic wonder, where verses danced in the air,

And the sweetest melodies echoed everywhere.

In this ethereal realm, where dreams took flight,

There lived a sparrow with feathers bright

Within a cage of iron bars

The feathered creature yearned to see the light.

With every morn and twilight’s glow,

It sang a chorus of a longing woe

A song that laced the air

With it’s meaningful melody,

A cry for freedom, its heart ached restlessly.

Though outside, the sun and seed live divine,

Within its prison, it could not shine

For deep within its soul, it knew,

That the boundless skies held something new.

Oh how it yearned to stretch its wings,

To soar above the sky

Where freedom sings

It’s verse,

For its confinement seems like a curse.

The bird, bound by chains of agony and anguish,

Though sovereignty of the chain’s grasp seems like a distance,

For the sparrow still longed to live in coexistence

With the world outside,

To fly so far,

That its cage seems out of sight

A maiden fair caught fragment of the bird’s song

That seemed to fill the air

“Oh little sparrow, tell me, what seems to cause you so despair?”

She asks with a voice full of such care,

That it seemed unreal, as if it’s a snare.

“My lady, this cage I am within, fills me with misery, these chains that bound me so, makes me yearn for their rescissory.”

The sparrow sang in reply

The maiden, for a second, looked as if fazed,

Then struck such a soft smile, that the bird was amazed.

“Little sparrow, such chains that you sing about are not to be found,

for the only chains in which you are bound, are from your own emotions and doubt.”

From the damsel’s strong words that only made it realize,

That the chains that locked him were only lies.

Lies that it told itself, lies that forbid him to fly.

The bird, was bound by its own fear and doubt

That sorrow restrained its seed from sprout.

“Thank you, My lady, for your kind words, for I have finally realized that the cage that holds me from freedom is myself.”