Effects of brain injury can easily be likened to your brain being inside a cage. Limitations have come into your life such as memory problems, cognitive problems and behavioral problems. A brain that was free is now in a cage.
Writer-Poet Maya Angelou was born in St. Louis, raped at age 8, had a child at age 16 and spent a childhood of being shipped back and forth between her mother and grandmother.
She gained national prominence in 1993 when she read On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton's Presidential inauguration, a poem written at his request. It was only the second time a poet had been asked to read at an inauguration, the first being Robert Frost at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy. Twenty-three years earlier, in 1970, she began writing her autobiography and began with a poem, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
The words are so relevant to someone living with brain injury.
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.
A free bird and a caged bird look at life differently. A free brain and a caged brain also see life differently. The caged brain, too, sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for because the brain caged by brain injury sings of freedom.
Fortunately, there are many strategies that can be learned that help unlock that cage. Sure, you may be unlocking a small cage to enjoy a bigger freedom of a larger cage, then an even larger cage later on. But you never quit singing of freedom and you never give up because what you seek is something you long for...still.
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