To Fly not, but Sing

Poemata LXXII

does law imprison / or can we stretch our wings out / to a lawless sky?

Nation which in time became a caged bird
 It is said you sing;    
 Voice, it is still carrying--
Some describe to me your song, as word for word
 Like you speak in tongues
 Bellowing out of your lungs;
Birds, they cannot speak the things they say to me
 Freedom, or of truth
 Yearning perhaps for their youth;
Pining for a time when caged they could not be
 Calling out a name
 It is unknown just the same;
Why not call to God as does the nightingale?
 Fly up as the lark?
 Listen to me as I hark;
Should you try to open it yourself you'd fail--
 For it is not closed,
 Not as you might have supposed;
But the fowler's snare perhaps you have espied?
 Proclaiming you are free
 Knowing it nowise to be;
"Free your mind", I hear them say, they have not lied
 Sit, still in their cage
 Neither a wing they engage;
Prisoners! You cannot be set free today
 Flying know you not,
 Dusk-time you will have been caught;
Summer ending now, with Autumn on its way
 Winter you must fly--
 Flight you must take, else you die.