Easter Sunday at midnight in Via Cartolari

On this Easter Sunday at midnight, somewhat randomly, I am lost in the nightmare of marital rape.  It's a cage of memories, of anguish, to which I have no key -- the images that haunt, replay, reduce me to incoherent sobs, a helpless puddle, a broken mess on the floor.  A holy man is intoning words into a microphone in a piazza somewhere outside my window -- a midnight Easter service. No doubt he is speaking, in a language still too lovely for me to understand, words of freedom and hope, of life after unspeakable death.  The people respond, resound with joy.  He bursts into song, and they echo back.

Someday I will understand what they are saying.

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

Maya Angelou