I've heard a strange tale lately,
old timers tell it best,
about an elephant’s craving
to go inside a birdcage.

The elephant decided
to widen up the entrance.
He grabbed his knife and sunk it
inside the cage's bowels.

Delighted by his brainwave
he made as if to enter,
but suddenly he halted,
a thought had crept inside him:

The cage had been a birdcage;
but now it was no more.
To be a cage requires
that one can lock its door.

The elephant, dejected,
looked blankly at his spree.
There is no fun in cages
that since have ceased to be so.

His craving thus continued
to rob his night of sleep;
he felt he had been hounded
locked in, and buried deep.