My Life as a Song Sparrow
by Barbara Crooker
My life is a song sparrow, chip chip chipping
on the hard white ground, hoping to find seeds,
yellow millet or black sunflower. It flits
from old apple tree to hedgerow, saying
my name. It's ordinary as this day,
beige, brown, and white, not flashy cardinal red,
not brassy jaybird blue. You'd hardly notice it
at the feeder, jostled out by all those bigger
birds, plan as the hills behind us, stippled
with trees. It's both more and less than I was
hoping for as I think about the cold mountain,
the long journey home. The sparrow looks
in the still water as it sits on the lip of the bird
bath, sees the wind-drawn ripples. It doesn't look
for more than food and shelter, a nest of straw,
a bough to keep off snow. Someone ot share
a branch with, downy feathers on a night
of frozen zeroes. What more can a person
hope for, in this world of a thousand sorrows,
than a life that was made for song, than a body
sometimes able to take wing?
--
Beautiful, yes?
And doesn't the title make a wonderful prompt? Perhaps you'd like to write a poem comparing your life to a particular bird? That's exactly what I decided to do...see below in this week's ArtSpeak: PICASSO poem. I chose a pigeon because that's what Picasso was fond of painting. :) (Without the art constraint, I think I might have chosen to write "My Life as a Hummingbird." Adding this to my to-do list...) Thanks so much for reading!
My Life as a Pigeon
Quiet, ordinary,
I scrabble for crumbs
along with my flock.
If I've learned anything,
it's that I was built
for flight—
flight and song.
Can't you hear me
cooing?
I carry a map
inside my heart
so that no matter
how far I fly,
I can always find home.
- Irene Latham
