When I was a little child, I once found a bird lying on the ground.
It would not ever fly again.
I held the bird up in my hands, I shed my tears over the lovely song that not longer could be heard.

Never learn to fly.

With dirty hands I dug a hole and gently laid the bird to rest in soil:
a wound in the tear stained mud.
My tears wore rain as I revealed the secrets of a tree.
A cross of bark to speak through wooden grains:

"Never learn to fly"

I sang a song which I remembered my grandma used to sing
for me, when I was sick and laid in bed.
Then I cursed that day for showing me my own mortality
for then I knew that all that lives turns cold. Cold and dead.
And now time has passed by beneath my wings.

That was then I'm older now, but still I can't forget that rainy day.
I raged against the ending times, though some day soon my son will maybe find the tree I cleansed of skin.
No chain-sling will ever climb its rotten limbs.
And when the time has come for me to die, I want to lie beside that bird.

Never learn to fly.

When I was a little child, I once found myself dying on the ground
and now I'll never ...fly...