The Sparrow and the Farmer
The wild black cherry saplings rise
Up like unkempt tendrils
Through the stone walls
Made of boulders, cobblestone
And pebbles the farmer wrestled from his field.
The sparrow flits among the branches
Her ancestors planted generations ago,
Feasting on those juicy berries,
One by one
Taking all she needs,
Excreting the seeds to Earth
Through the crevices of the wall,
Anointing them with a joyful song.
The graying farmer works the field,
Head bent low as if in prayer,
The clink of the cultivator blade on stone gives percussive
Accompaniment to the sparrow’s warble
In the late summer air.
It’s third planting.
Cover cropping winter rye, buckwheat, crowned-vetch
To hold, to nourish the soil through the mean side of Winter Wind, through the onslaught of melting snow,
Cracking ice and Spring rain.
Who ever thought mere seeds could hold so much intact,
While feeding so many dreams?
The Sun pours lavish
Down the Southern half of the still sky westward
And the farmer hums softly to himself, there,
In the spell of those blue-black layers of moist tilth turning,
Their odors rising as if in answer to his prayer.
When I return to you myself, Mother Land,
Will your sweet forgiveness, which beckons me now
Await me? Encircle me? Purify me? Hold me forever?
Will the song of my friend the sparrow always abide
In this heavenly place
Singing my Eulogy?
04-01-02 / Maribett
