Massey set the bird free.
He knew its blueness
Longed for the blueness
Of sky, its glass fragility
The delicacy of dogwood,
Dew coat and breath of dawn
To comfort it. Only a child
Can show us what it means
To be held . . . or held.
–Shaun Perkins
NOTE: My sister’s nephew 5-year-old Massey visited us from Louisiana at Thanksgiving. In front of the museum I have an iron bird cage with Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” framed on it and a glass bird inside it. Massey took out the bird when he was here. It showed up later on my porch.
Rural Oklahoma Museum of Poetry 