"It was the charm of my voice that kept me caged."

Rumi: “The Indian Parrot”

There was a merchant setting out for India.

He asked each male and female servant

what they wanted to be brought as a gift.

Each told him a different exotic object:

A piece of silk, a brass figurine,

a pearl necklace.

Then he asked his beautiful caged parrot,

the one with such a lovely voice,

and she said,

"When you see the Indian parrots,

describe my cage. Say that I need guidance

here in my separation from them. Ask how

our friendship can continue with me so confined

and them flying about freely in the meadow mist.

Tell them that I remember well our mornings

moving together from tree to tree.

Tell them to drink one cup of ecstatic wine

in honor of me here in the dregs of my life.

Tell them that the sound of their quarrelling

high in the trees would be sweeter

to hear than any music."

This parrot is the spirit-bird in all of us,

that part that wants to return to freedom,

and is the freedom. What she wants

from India is herself!

So this parrot gave her message to the merchant,

and when he reached India, he saw a field

full of parrots. He stopped

and called out what she had told him.

One of the nearest parrots shivered

and stiffened and fell down dead.

The merchant said, "This one is surely kin

to my parrot. I shouldn't have spoken."

He finished his trading and returned home

with the presents for his workers.

When he got to the parrot, she demanded her gift.

"What happened when you told my story to the Indian parrots?"

"I'm afraid to say."

"Master, you must!"

"When I spoke your complaint to the field

of chattering parrots, it broke

one of their hearts.

She must have been a close companion,

or a relative, for when she heard about you

she grew quiet and trembled, and died."

As the caged parrot heard this, she herself

quivered and sank to the cage floor.

This merchant was a good man.

He grieved deeply for his parrot, murmuring

distracted phrases, self-contradictory -

cold, then loving - clear, then

murky with symbolism.

A drowning man reaches for anything!

The Friend loves this flailing about

better than any lying still.

The One who lives inside existence

stays constantly in motion,

and whatever you do, that king

watches through the window.

When the merchant threw the "dead" parrot

out of the cage, it spread its wings

and glided to a nearby tree!

The merchant suddenly understood the mystery.

"Sweet singer, what was in the message

that taught you this trick?"

"She told me that it was the charm

of my voice that kept me caged.

Give it up, and be released!"

The parrot told the merchant one or two more

spiritual truths. Then a tender goodbye.

"God protect you," said the merchant

"as you go on your new way.

I hope to follow you!"

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 This poem could be contrasted with Paul Lawrence Dunbar's "Sympathy" (the poem with the line "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" in it which Maya Angelou used). "It was the charm of my voice that kept me caged." The birds sing in code....the poem sucks the unsuspecting reader in by presenting the merchant as a "good man" (a reasonable man, etc)....but indeed it's about slavery and global oppression.....does it suggest a useful strategy to deal with those issues in today's international neo-colonial corporatocracy?