There is a bird I’ve known for far too long
Only and only by its silken song
As much as I’ve tried to find her perch
I’ve ended up with a fruitless search

It sings melodies like a bamboo flute
While picking and eating berries and fruit
A nameless friend that brings such joy
Yet I know not if it’s a girl or boy !

But one fine day when it stopped singing
My voice, my words, they went missing
For all the penmanship, everything I wrote
Was a quote of the birdsong note for note

With a longing ear, its song did I seek
I waited for a sign many a week
In agony I wondered ‘Did I lose my muse?’
And in mourning I penned down my blues.

With that outpouring, painful and tragic
Emerged an element of elegant magic
I heard its voice note for note
The bird sang the blues I just wrote

It said, I am sorry to have disappeared
I grew afraid of thoughts you too feared
Was my spirited song, a daily drivel
Was there meaning at all in tales I tell?

Bird, I told, you are timeless art
Each of my word is a dipping dart
Aimed at pinning the essence in your song
The pursuit of all artists all along

As bright as you imagine my feathers to be
Your words are light that invite me to see
The silent surrender to art in pursuit
The beauty in song that’s beyond refute

And so we mirrored each other’s thought
Together did flow past the creative clot
We traded our thoughts as we must
And never argued about who stopped first

And we found a vision along with our sight
The bird sang aloud, fearlessly did I write
To tell tales in tandem became our resolution
And I named the nameless bird,
Inspiration.