Sparrows

Sparrows dart round these chambers, never knowing what they will do: where will they fly or perch? The nostrils prick at odours, the mouth tastes flavours. Memory singed long ago. How boring other people's sparrows seem when they're not your own, when magnified – as they usually are – to a stature they may not deserve. It's the same with thoughts, with loves. Never in the same room, always someplace else. Recalling; thinking; questioning: what would van Gogh have made of the sunflowers in Italy? Of Italy itself – the Italian countryside?

Read and write...wonder...sparrows perch, fly.

Picture credit: Sparrows and Camellias in the Snow, 1838, Hiroshige (source: WikiArt).

Attributed to reading White Egrets by Derek Walcott.

Written June 2022.