Poem: The Caged Bird Still Sings

We all thought
that the caged bird
of Harlem
was let out of its cage.

After it sang a plea
and hit its tender wing
on the cruel metal bars
of its cage.

But the bird is still not free,
and the bird still sings.
And the bird still beats
its wing on the bars.

For outside,
where the sun sets,
there is freedom,
but in confinement,
the bird still lives on.

It lives on in the lives
of its descendants,
who still suffer in the same cage.

and the happy guile
that was uncovered years ago,
in Ferguson,
is not there anymore.