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21 Mar 2023
A R
Williams
New Moon
Through the Eyes
of a Sparrow
Here a branch sways
And there
a sparrow twitters.
from F S Flint’s Cones
How is it that a sparrow can serenade
this grove a stone’s throw away from a squall?
Here a great oak breaks under the weight
of the wind’s hand. There a wheaten
warbler twitters her young a lullaby.
How does she sing amid the storm?
Jesus of Nazareth once instructed
his followers to look at the birds of the air …
And as I gaze at this singing sparrow,
I yearn to see through her eyes.
Behind the poem...
I came across F S Flint’s poem Cones in a print anthology of imagist poetry. As I read it, I pictured at once his sparrow in a tree, ‘twittering’. The words ‘here’ and ‘there’ seized my imagination. I knew I had to see what that sparrow saw.