The Sky Keeps It's Promise Poem by Bishnupada Sethi

He came home from the war
with a heart stitched in shrapnel,
each beat a quiet drum
against the iron bars of memory.

One noon, beneath a banyan's shade,
a bird-seller rattled cages-
parakeets, mynas, a lone munia
beating wings against tomorrow.
The soldier emptied his pockets;
coins clinked like spent shells.
Cage doors yawned; the sky
swallowed color whole.

A boy watched
as he read it in his textbook.
His small fist clenched
around a rupee and a vow.
Years later, the vow grew feathers:
every roadside cage
became a war he had to fight.

He stopped, he paid, he opened—
a sparrow, a dove, a kingfisher's flash.
Each release a prayer in flight,
each wingbeat a syllable of freedom.

Today the law of cages turned.
Hands that once locked now fumbled;
keys slipped, bars bent like reeds.
The villains stood astonished-

a thousand invisible wings
buffeted the air, a storm of mercy.
He wept, not for the bars that failed,
but for the sky that never did.