Sparrow

song sparrow

This morning, on my way in from the parking lot, I saw a little bird in the distance. As I got closer, I saw it was a song sparrow. I don't have any photos of my own of song sparrows, so I thought I'd link you to this lovely bird lover.

Back to my random thoughts.

When I realized the bird was a sparrow, I remembered having breakfast at a diner in Iowa. One of the men in at the table asked about the birds in the parking lot. They're just house sparrows, I said. "They're really beautiful," the man replied. 

They are. If this tiny little creature weren't omnipresent, it would be a prized citing on any birder's life list. Instead, people shoo them away from bird feeders because they're too common. 

And I remembered a poem I used to love when I was a child.

Sparrow

Stephen Vincent Benét

Lord, may I be

A sparrow in a tree.

No ominous and splendid bird of prey

But something that is fearful every day

Yet keeps its small flesh full of heat and lightness.

Pigeons are better dressed and robins stouter

The white owl has all winter in his whiteness

And the blue heron is a kingly dream

At evening, by the pale stream,

But, even in the lion’s cage, in Zoos,

You’ll find a sparrow, picking up the crumbs

And taking life precisely as it comes

With the black, wary eye that marks the doubter;

Squabbling in crowds, dust-bathing in the sun,

Small, joyous, impudent, a gutter-child

In Lesbia’s bosom or December’s chill,

Full of impertinence and hard to kill

As Queen Anne’s lace and poppies in the wheat—

I won’t pretend the fellow has a Muse

But that he has advice, and good advice,

All lovers know who’ve walked the city’s street

And wished the stones were bread.

Peacocks are handsomer and owls more wise.

(At least, by all repute.)

And parrots live on flattery and fruit,

Live to a great age. The sparrow’s none of these.

The sparrow is a humorist, and dies.

There are so many things that he is not.

He will not tear the stag nor sweep the seas

Nor fall, majestical, to a king’s arrow.

Yet how he lives, and how he loves in Living

Up to the dusty tip of every feather!

How he endures oppression and the weather

And asks for neither justice nor forgiving!

Lord, in your mercy, let me be a sparrow!

His rapid heart’s so hot.

And some can sing—song-sparrows, so they say—

And one thing, Lord, the times are iron, now

Perhaps you have forgot.

They shoot the wise and brave on every bough

But sparrows are the last things that get shot.

I have always loved sparrows. Not just because they're beautiful, but in large part, because of this poem. 

I identify with them.  Small, timid, plain, common. Just trying to stay out of the way and get enough sustenance. But as I reread this poem, I see the other things I want. The bravery, the doing what must be done, the joy, the humor. And the passion. "Yet keeps its small flesh full of heat and lightness." 

Yes please.

(ps. Thanks to Leslie, "liberrian" extarodinaire, for the text of this poem. I was not at home, and she looked it up for me.)