Sparrows

My daughter Kate is a senior at Wilson Hill Academy, an online school she’s attended since ninth grade. Once a year, Wilson Hill students and families attend an in-person event called LINK where they have field day competitions, awards ceremonies, and graduation. This week, we’ll be traveling to Colorado to attend LINK and my daughter’s graduation ceremony.

It’s common to hear people say graduates are about to “spread their wings” and fly off on their own for the first time. This made me think of a poem I wrote last year called “Sparrows.” In this poem, watching some birds leads me to reflect on the human condition along the lines of Jesus’s words in the Sermon on the Mount: “Look at the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?  Can any of you add a single hour to his life by worrying?” (Matt. 6:26-27).

“Sparrows” is in my new book, Shadow and Memory, now available on Amazon.

Sparrows

Sparrows popcorn around
a parking lot,
sometimes pecking at bits
on the ground or
bow-twanging into the sky
on built-in fletching.

I am convinced there is no gravity,
only worry.

I want to be like the sparrows

winged
and full of springs.