The Story of an Uncaged Mind
by Katherine West
At first I didn't even know there was a cage. I knew only the wind and cold of my cliff. At night the wind slept, so I could fly. Where did I not travel? No land not open to my wings. No black mountain, no turquoise sea, no rumpled forest, no littered beach. No red-roofed pueblo, no city of glass and steel. No ruin of stone.
I flew through time as well as space. I saw apes descend from trees. I watched the glaciers retreat. I watched pyramids attempt to touch the stars. I watched the first book being printed. I watched trains try to circumnavigate the world.
My wings reached the future too. I saw the sky turn from blue to brown. Saw the oceans flood. Saw the deserts grow with their own white tides. Saw the libraries close.
I saw the Hounds of Dogma waiting every time I tried to land. The Guardians of Thought standing at attention on either side of the cage I now saw for the first time. Oh! How it glowed in the sun's first light. Like a little sun itself, offering my heavy wings a rest.
One by one I watched the birds of the world enter the cage, burn, die and never rise again. With each friend, I burned and died as well, feeling every feather that shriveled in the flames.
I died. But my wings did not. They beat and beat above the molten ash that was the grieving rest of me.
Once. My wings hovered before the golden door. Once. They soared back and forth as the Guardians of Thought shoveled me up and tossed me into the cage.
Once. They swooped so low the Hounds of Dogma snapped and feathers drifted to the ground. Once more, my wings rose, circled, then faded into sky, releasing one blue plume that rocked gently as it floated through the bars of my cage and touched down on my bed of ash like a windblown seed.
Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer. Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado. She is also an artist.
