From the kitchen window,
I see it -
a small rust-and-ash miracle,
no heavier than a breath,
balanced on the rail
where the snow’s white tide
has not yet climbed.
Inside, the air is slow with warmth -
hum of the refrigerator,
a clock, a distant metronome,
the smell of toast drifting from breakfast.
Somewhere in the next room,
a chair settles with a quiet creak.
Beyond the glass,
Boulevard and Street
lie muffled under winter’s hand -
the stop sign dulled to muted red,
the pavement swallowed in silence.
Even the wind,
usually restless,
waits.
The yard is an unbroken hush,
and the sparrow -
a single black comma -
holds it still.
It tilts its head,
as if the snow had spoken
a delicate instruction
meant only for the small-boned
and the lighthearted.
It hops once,
testing the rail,
its feet no larger
than the print of a raindrop
pressed into cold wood.
No reason explains this visit.
Not hunger. Not warmth.
Only the quiet
calling for company.
I think of the distance
this bird has flown,
of storms endured without complaint,
and how it arrives in my yard
without needing a reason.
The mug in my hand
gives off a faint heat,
curling into my palm,
while outside
the sparrow’s feathers
catch thin light -
copper sparks in snow.
And I,
rooted to floorboards,
look longer -
past the bird, past the rail,
into the drifting white
gathering on fences,
wrapping sleeping bushes,
lacing the pear’s bare branches
with frost’s careful handwriting.
At last the snowfall thickens,
the bird flickers its wings,
and in a single motion
folds back into the air -
leaving only the faint impression
of where it was,
like a word erased.
GBS
2014
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