The Girl with the pigeon*

The girl with a pigeon*

The girl had no other means to know
The World outside,
Without her father,
Who had gone away long before she was born,
And an ailing mother, stuck to her bed, most of the days,
She had to do all the works at home,
Her brothers were stout and tall,
They worked at granaries,
Brought they home, once dolls,
For her,
Now that she had grown a bit old,
Age attaining that what they call,
Marriageable,
They wanted her to settle,

But the girl,
She would by and large stay silent,
Working all day long,
Only in the afternoons of summer and winters and springs,
She would keep herself attached
To the world outside
And how, through a pigeon,
The white silent calm looking one,
The bird would come
And sit without any hesitation,
Upon her one shoulder,
And they would just sit together
Lime a statue for hours,
The bird, would then,
Tell her stories of the world,
How , in a faraway town,
There came a circus,

How in Madagascar,
There appeared a strange Man
Who could sleep forty winks,
All winter,
How in Honduras,
People go bathing at the sea
All the summer months,

How in Mississippi,
A woman had made it
To the annals of history
By making a big scarf enough
To cover the necks of thirty three elephants,

Many more curious news thus,
Came to the girl ,
Via that beautiful talking pigeon,

And the girl would with the bird's tales,
Go to distant lands,
Meet people,
Talk to them in her dreams,

Another world ,
They had made for them it seemed,
The Girl and her pigeon.

(*Note: the painting attached is used to decorate the poem prosaic/ short scribbling/ poem in prose/ tale , done by Christian Schloe; courtesy : Musica Pittura e Dintorni)