A First Sight Of Death


An inquisitive sparrow

Happens into the room

Through an opened french door;

For the sun shines mightily

And the air is utterly still.

The wall is all window

– To admit of the day

The sashes are lowered

– But the vista is only

Half daylight, half glass.

Silence floods through the room

And fills it with light;

Broad-breasted, the bird struts and noses,

When, sudden and rushing, into

The stillness erupts a small child.

In horror and panic the sparrow

Is airborne. Headlong for safety,

Its skull implodes thud on the glass;

A death self-inflicted, in innocence,

The concept of glass beyond understanding.

Bloody and warm, its body

Lies limp in the palm of a hand;

A just-clammy hand stricken cold

By the conscience that stares

At a blood-streak which hangs in the air.