Sparrows

John Pass
From: crawlspace (Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2011)

On the lower concourse at YVR the lighting hangs
in swept-back wings of fluorescence above us, and sparrows

have got in somewhere through the glass expanses.
Trapped, they loop and weave their ways among the fixtures

in a magnified grace, with aerodynamic verve
and slide unseen in sparrows outside.

How they mock the stasis of our style, the stuckness
of the made thing, however edgy, and then prefer

the lit to light upon, as our light mocks
their dowdy, perching, ruffled dun— like little lumps

of clumsy animation in a hologram, blots on an HD screen.
And what is this, that one, with its thread of pink wool, wriggling

under the ill-fitted panel labeled CIRCUIT 6? An optimist?
A realist in our midst? Busy denizen, at home in our dark

densities, our nesting power, while we lean
back and crane our necks to gawk

awkwardly upward at the glare awaiting
the return of loved ones from the air, or flight ourselves.

Poem 1 | Poem 2 | Poem 3 | Poem 4 | Poem 5 | Poem 6 | Poem 7 | Poem 8 | Poem 9

John Pass' works copyright © to the author.