i met a man upon the road who carried his mind in a thicket of thorns bluejays nesting in his thoughts had built it one thorny troubled thought at a time untill he staggered as he walked from the weight of this contraption of the mind like a drunkard in the backstreets of seaside town he would sit by the small cafe or coffee house and sing for young lovers such songs as ballads of old or ones from folk singers and childhoods fancy bright songs of good cheer
at the end of the long summer day as the cafe and coffee shop would shutter their doors he would gather his coin and bid the day fare thee well would climb slowly the flower strewn hill sit under the great oak tree and prune hisΒ thicket of a mind with pinking shears and a hacksaw with a farmer's plow and the beekeepers glove
a thousand fold bluebirds moving as one with a terrible sound of wings upon the air a soft beating of wings like a hearts dry thunder each carrying a twig to add to his thorny thicket which was now larger than the man himself he would wrestle with it all the long night till sleep overtook him there under the great oak tree
so he lingered here by the sea for years at the whims of romance by lovers in the coffee house by daylight and the light of the moon that lead him to dance in a maiden hayfield at night he would sing ballads to the star light and to the wisps of clouds flying the night sky
they buried him with his thicket of thorns at the top of the hill below the stars that weep even now he asked me why once why none helped him be free of his thicket of thorns why not one took pity and took his hand to at least comfort and i told him that the world had in bluebirds that kept him company in coffee houses that loved his songs in me that came to know him at long last not as a man with a thicket of thorns but as an empire of bluebirds playing in the skies just at dawns first light