PAD Day 23: Free as a Bird

Today's dual prompts from Poetic Asides and NaPoWriMo: (1) Write a "free" and/or "unfree" poem, and (2) write a poem about an animal. This is actually the second "animal" prompt of the month.(Poetic Asides had one earlier.) I've been struggling for inspiration the last couple of days, even with the prompts, so I decided to kick it up a notch and added a third prompt to get the creative juices flowing, by using the Sunday Whirl word bank for this week. The words were shack, ridge, power, spring, glass, tree, park, spray, wings, sight, limit, and salt. All twelve are in this poem, which may not be my best or most original of the month, but hey, it's a poem.

Cardinal

Here in my tiny shack on the ridge

I'm free of the power grid,

the sun and wind my providers.

A late snow has dusted everything

this spring morning, and as I look

through the glass over my kitchen sink,

I spy a cardinal in a nearby pine tree,

parked on a snow-covered branch.

I've just begun to appreciate

his red swatch of plumage against

the green and white, when he takes off,

spraying snow from the bough, his wings

flapping furiously as he soars out of sight.

I've found a kind of freedom here,

but even this life has its limits, while he,

like any wild creature worth its salt,

has none. Fly, brother. Fly.