I have, in one corner of my backyard,
a mini-temple made of two pine trees,
scrawny and mauled by electric wires,
yet thick enough to keep off the snow
and sanctuary the ubiquitous sparrows
continually chatting (in fluffy vestments
smudged fawn and brown and gray)
the Sermon on the Mount.
Inside, warm and well-weighted
with worries--'twould be a pity
to refuse so short a pilgrimage,
small as the turning of the heart.
a mini-temple made of two pine trees,
scrawny and mauled by electric wires,
yet thick enough to keep off the snow
and sanctuary the ubiquitous sparrows
continually chatting (in fluffy vestments
smudged fawn and brown and gray)
the Sermon on the Mount.
Inside, warm and well-weighted
with worries--'twould be a pity
to refuse so short a pilgrimage,
small as the turning of the heart.
I've been spending time with this poem, without commenting (yet!), and I have enjoyed the time that I have spent with it!
ReplyDeleteSo many resonances ... the reader delights in sitting back and letting those resonances resound!
There's something about sparrows, isn't there? Hamlet tells us "there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow."
Thank you! Yes, there is something about sparrows. They are so very accessible and alive and persistent.
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