The Legend of the Sparrow
 |
| (Found here) |
into the sun.
Oh, how the birds of earth set up a cry
at such imprudence in a little one
when even eagles dared not venture near
the burning stratosphere.
“She will come down within a mile or two,”
they prophesied with dread.
It was, of course, most pitifully true.
Scarce half-way up the mountain overhead
she crashed into her feathers, as they said.
But when her wings healed, up she shot again
and sought a further bough.
She was more humble and more cautious now,
after a brief novitiate of pain.
Three times she rose; twice the wind brought her down,
once her own weariness.
At last she clutched a branch in her distress
and cried, “How can I ever hope to rest
in the sun’s downy nest?
I faint; I fall whatever way I go!”
But then she turned and saw the home she left
unnumbered miles below,
while just beyond her lay the mountain top,
a kerchiefed head of snow.
Nobody told her and she never guessed
that earth’s last height was all that she need seek.
All winds blow upward from the mountain peak
and there the sun has such magnetic rays
that in one moment she was lifted up
into his tender blaze.
Down in the valley there was such a stir:
A sparrow reached the sun!
Why had the wind and weather favored her?
What had she ever done?
Yet since they must, they spoke the praising word,
measured her flight and paused to gasp afresh.
What was she really but a little bird,
all feather and no flesh?
Only the sun knew, and the moving air
the miracle thereof:
a bird that wings itself with resolute love
can travel anywhere.
~Jessica Powers
Comments