The poem’s main message is about the difference between freedom and captivity. Again, it is important to understand that the poem does not specify the reasons for this freedom or captivity; the poem is a universal expression of these two states of being.

In the poem, freedom is movement, life, energy, warmth, openness, and nature. The poem opens not just with a free bird, but with a free bird who is taking action. Angelou uses active verbs to show this: The bird leaps, floats, dips, dares, and claims.

The free bird uses nature for his own devices. He uses the wind, trees, and bugs to sustain himself. Because of his ability to use nature for its own well-being, the bird claims dominion over nature, similar to how God gives Adam dominion over nature in the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible.

This free bird also experiences the vibrancy of life. Angelou personifies the wind, as it has a back upon which the bird can ride. She also compares the wind to the powerful rushing waters, as the bird “floats downstream / till the [wind’s] current ends” (Lines 3-4). The “orange sun rays” (Line 6) also energize the bird.

The second time Angelou describes the free bird in the fourth stanza, the bird again is free to engage with the breeze and all the aspects of nature he connects with, including the trees and the worms that he will eat.