Another Poem for Sunday

From today's Washington Post Book World Poet's Choice column by Edward Hirsch. I think that from now on, I should just link there on Sundays. The whole column, including a poem by Roberta Spear, is worth reading.

Some Sparrows
By Ernesto Trejo

Lately, I've been watching them, pecking
furiously at the ground,
then retreating into the eucalyptus,
where they stagger like compasses
before their tiny hearts quit and they drop,
stone-like.
Sometimes my cat
will sniff them and jerk back
as if pierced on the nose by a needle.
In the dark they go on dying.
While burying them I have shoveled newspapers,
their bloody lips decayed, a child's
lucky penny, a rusted pipe
that goes nowhere, the roots of weeds
tangled like kite strings or hearts . . . .
Tonight, as if for the last time, I hold
my woman's face. Were I to die, my eyes' vaults
would crave light. When I go, place a dying sparrow
in my hands. My soul will find a tree to perch on.

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Have been trying to write another Equilibrium story but keep getting stuck. We took the kids hiking at a local nature center, and are taking my father out for Thai food tonight since my mother is out of town. Had better slog through this article I have to write, huh?


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