The Blue Bird’s Ode to Corona, the Queen

It is a jungle of loneliness

that one leaves behind,

Moving  to a hollow forest of thought

where sunlight never touches the ground,

Resonant with  grief

that feeds on itself

The futile empty streets leading

to other futile empty streets

through which an ominous breeze blows

tender green leaves, already

with autumnal hues,

In a whirlwind of memory;

Not a sound is heard

in the limitless desert of hope

of thoughtless,  forsaken joy

But the darkened sky turns azure,

with billowing clouds, wandering free.

While ancient trees stand tall,

freed from the  foresters' axe

Morning birds no longer grovel

on inhospitable terrace and balcony,

awaiting  grain from unwilling hands.

Parrots sit conversing

on red sandstone ledges

Jutting out of green palaces

where man has been.

The joyous trees make a merry go round;

Fragile Gulmohar

with abundant  red flowers

And its stronger friend the Palash tree

— flaming through the forest

lean towards the  fulsome laburnum;

with its golden blooms

and bunches of iridescent  leaves

to together watch in wonderment

the Jacaranda tree

shedding her lavender

to reveal a wondrously lissome form

in the moonlight,

when the moon never looked larger;

never so bright;

and with a lingering glance at the blue river

stream onto its banks’ rejoicing

that it will be have no more canes

no more hooks or cruel sticks

piercing the flow of her sparkling waters.

“I will tell my kingdom beneath” said the happy river

To no longer meander fearfully.

And then appeared from a scarred mountainside

where man had hacked and felled thick rain forests

for  millions of years,

A blue bird with an olive branch

“Hail Corona, the Queen!

Who  has rescued us

from the slings and arrows of piercing misfortune

Inflicted by that grisly beast, man”.

Said the blue bird, "I will now circle the skies

And ride a chariot of clouds!

I will circle the heavens and sing to my Lord

who made all things, which we knew all along."