Music: OZET Songbook

Birds In Boxes

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Lyrics

I had a vision,
an experiment to try:
put birds in boxes,
lift them by balloons.

In the forest near my mother's house
I caged a mating pair --
Bohemian Waxwings
singing in a pine tree
like soprano bells
in the Church
of the Exaltation of the Cross

The box was tin.
I put their nest inside,
and a telegraphone to catch their sounds.
I thought their song might change
up in the stratosphere.
I thought the altitude might cause
euphoria
or panic.

I left them room
to flap their wings and
if the air could hold them
fly.

I rigged a clock
to drop
a fistful of berries washed in arsenic
and save them from freezing
in the mesosphere.

The students at the Trade School
didn't like me, though.
They started rumors.
They said I wanted to escape
to Germany or Sweden
in a craft that Party airplanes
couldn't follow.

The police appeared and took me
from a stubbly Autumn field
as my birds topped five kilometers.
I didn't see them coming.
I never heard the singing.
They asked me what we're learning.