The Sparrow
(To My Father)
This sparrow
who comes to sit at my window
is a poetic truth
more than a natural one.
His voice,
his movements,
his habits--
how he loves to
flutter his wings
in the dust--
all attest it;
granted, he does it
to rid himself of lice
but the relief he feels
makes him
cry out lustily
which is a trait
more related to music
than otherwise.
Wherever he finds himself
in early spring,
on back streets
or beside palaces,
he carries on
unaffectedly
his amours.
It begins in the egg,
his sex genders it:
What is more pretentiously
useless
or about which
we more pride ourselves?
It leads as often as not
to our undoing.
The cockerel, the crow
with their challenging voices
cannot surpass
the insistence
of his cheep!
Once
at
toward evening,
I saw--and heard!--
ten thousand sparrows
who had come in from
the desert
to roost. They filled the trees
of a small park. Men fled
(with ears ringing!)
from their droppings,
leaving the premises
to the alligators
who inhabit
the fountain. His image
is familiar
as that of the aristocratic
unicorn, a pity
there are not more oats eaten
nowadays
to make a living easier
for him.
At that,
his small size,
keen eyes,
serviceable beak
and general truculence
assure his survival--
to say nothing
of his innumerable
brood.
Even the Japanese
know him
and have painted him
sympathetically,
with profound insight
Into his minor
characteristics.
Nothing even remotely
subtle
about his lovemaking.
He crouches
before the female,
drags his wings,
waltzing,
throws back his head
and simply--
yells! The din
is terrific.
The way he swipes his bill
across a plank
to clean it,
is decisive.
So with everything
he does. His coppery
eyebrows
give him the air
of being always
a winner--and yet
I saw once,
the female of his species
clinging determinedly
to the edge of
a water pipe,
catch him
by his crown-feathers
to hold him
silent,
subdued,
hanging above the city streets
until
she was through with him.
What was the use
of that?
She hung there
herself,
puzzled at her success.
I laughed heartily.
Practical to the end
it is the poem
of his existence
that triumphed
finally;
a wisp of feathers
flattened to the pavement,
wings spread symmetrically
as if in flight,
the head gone,
the black escutcheon of the breast
undecipherable,
an effigy of a sparrow
a dried wafer only,
left to say
and it says it
without offense,
beautifully;
This was I,
a sparrow.
I did my best;
farewell.
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