21 Mar 2023

A R
Williams

New Moon

Apr 6th

Mar 7th

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.