The Language of Sparrows

Our daughter is dead.

We plant seedlings

by her grave in April,

when Spring seduces

with all its promise,

moisten the ground

with a jug of water

and say how, years from now,

a bush will burst and flower,

be home to a family of sparrows,

each knowing the other by their name.

I ask you if birds have names,

like Alice, Brent, Jessica and James,

if their parents

call these fledglings

when it rains,

say settle here in branches

among the leaves that keep you dry—

not in English, mind you,

or any other human tongue

but in the language of sparrows;

each trill, each warbling,

a repartee,

a crafted conversation of the minds.

I then notice

that we never see their wings

amid the showers,

how they disappear in downpours,

seeking shelter

in something we simply cannot see.

When we’re old,

when we come to remember

the belovѐd we have lost,

the songs will be shielded

in our shrub—

not a short and stunted one,

but a grand, blessѐd growth,

like the one that spoke to Moses,

aflame, uttering

I AM WHO I AM,

one that towers,

dense with green,

a monument

to the child whom we treasured

and the feathers she adored,

naming the formerly fallowed, hallowed, 

sacred, remove your shoes,

Spirits and Sparrows dwell

and sibilate secrets

we’re unworthy to glean.

Andreas Gripp

RF Image