An Uncaptured Bird

An Uncaptured Bird

(“For Christ is the end of the law, with the result that there is righteousness for everyone who believes.” Romans 10:4)

The sounds that surrounded you were solid
as they recited every rule you had ever learned.
You thought it was freedom, but it was a prison cell instead.
You thought your efforts gave you wings and forgot
how the remains piled up and held you down.
You insisted you were open and untamed but everyone
saw you tied down by all the effort you took to prove
how you could break through every yoke,
see through every strand, stand on the precipice of
pirouettes like magnets unwinding every attempt
you took to prove yourself, to convince yourself that
every vow you took could be an endless loop of
righteousness. You believed that every hour of prayer
turned your solitude into rhinestones of proclamations.

You were not untrue; you were only bidden by
recoiled words that suggested what you learned was
hidden
from the unconscious and uncommitted. You imagined
you were flying with your feet nailed to the ground.
You partook of the cups of canon rule and never gave up
on your attitudes of holy effort.
You only fastened your hopes to how much better
you had become.

There was a freedom only measured by confidence that
you no longer needed to show off for the everlasting or
the mortal. You stood like the light of day, like the light
dew of the morning, and felt the breeze rise beneath
your wings as you stood and leaned back into the
grace that, unattainable, had enveloped you,
from beginning to now,
without you noticing it. And the joy filled
your lungs, and the wings flew like an
uncaptured bird carrying its song toward
the sun, toward the sun. And the bird carried its
song free on the breeze and singing like
a zephyr celebrating the day.