Flowers Are Free

Flowers are free, but birds come with words....


The little bird
Who could not decide
Which color to wear
So she put on them all
And sailed into the sky
Like a prism
Heart aflutter
Wings in the buttery air
Met the mockingbirds at last
And asked
To sing with them
But when the matron mockingbird
Saw this fashion misfit
she laughed
and soon
all the mockingbirds did too
a chorus
of dark and confident laugher:
a trademark of the enthroned.
And so
she began to pluck herself
Raw
As they watched with beaks open
at the delicious spectacle
And when finally at last
She was bare before them
with nothing left to fear
She began to sing
And as she sang
Her colors flew into the air
Unencumbered by form
And made even the mockingbirds
Breathless
With the beauty of it.