O my bird

O my bird
I painted you
much before you came.
A past cadaver
your shape, your nature
your songs were recorded
on the page of my mind.

Now when you are here,
present, right in front of me
I find you wrong, strange
I can hear you speaking
singing in a language
beyond my image.
My borrowed intellect
from white volumes
of knowledge
made me a living dead.

You came, you sang
you sat, you danced, you walked
nearly in my heart
you went passed
so close, unconquered,
your being, your tongue
to me was unseen, unheard.