Les plus lus ▸
Dave Bonta
The field sparrow is back—
that rising trill spilling
from a small, pink beak.
A yellow-bellied sapsucker
taps a ring of wells all around
the bole of a hickory.
You nap on the porch,
ears open to the creek and other
migrant tongues.
It was dusk outside; inside the long hall
Dinner was set; candles lit.
Away, from the end of the corridor
Twilight fell softly across the floor.
At the other end, a door opened
To a patch of sky and a green-capped tree.
In the hall, alone at the table, I sat
Staring at the food I really didn’t see.
I didn’t hear him first; maybe I sensed –
What was he after, inside a house?
Silently he had entered from the garden
Perhaps a gust of wind swept him in.
A little sparrow, fluttering his wings,
He skitters, flies up and down, zigzag.
He almost hit the ceiling, and he didn’t -
He tried to escape but the windows were closed.
As you gaze, I
avert my eyes
lest breath stop.
Behind you, leaves
paint the sun
while sparrows
sing on.
The roofs are shining from the rain,
The sparrows twitter as they fly,
And with a windy April grace
The little clouds go by.
Yet the back-yards are bare and brown
With only one unchanging tree--
I could not be so sure of Spring
Save that it sings in me.
Because you have no fear to mingle
Wings with those of greater part,
So like me, with song I single
Your sweet impudence of heart.
And when prouder feathers go where
Summer holds her leafy show,
You still come to us from nowhere
Like grey leaves across the snow.
In back ways where odd and end go
To your meals you drop down sure,
Knowing every broken window
Of the hospitable poor.
There is no bird half so harmless,
None so sweetly rude as you,
None so common and so charmless,
None of virtues nude as you.
Sweet life! how lovely to be here
And feel the soft sea-laden breeze
Strike my flushed face, the spruce’s fair
Free limbs to see, the lesser trees’
Bare hands to touch, the sparrow’s cheep
To heed, and watch his nimble flight
Above the short brown grass asleep.
Love glorious in his friendly might,
Music that every heart could bless,
And thoughts of life serene, divine,
Beyond my power to express,
Crowd round this lifted heart of mine!
But oh! to leave this paradise
For the city’s dirty basement room,
Where, beauty hidden from the eyes,
A table, bed, bureau and broom