Poem: Nine Sparrows (from Miniscule ©)

 

Nine Sparrows

        Inspired by Gary Roberts' Nine Sparrows with Newspaper

In the silence of a painting,

nine sparrows live far from mountain and nest.

Like a toy army, they perch into the abundance 

of feather and down.

In the West they are vermin. In the East, they’re sentenced

to rafters and eaves.

There is something we fail to do in authority,

that must wait inside us like thick brown paint does

on palette and knife.

This little flock of birds, cold, without sun, stroked in burnt tan,

hearts and tails slide as snow drifts

on the breath of a pond.

But what is the point of knowing them bandits when they fill

a life of trees, when they remind us of home,

when on their travels

they turn east, west, south.

Acknowledgement:
http://www.franceskeevilgallery.com.au/artists_enlargement.php?current=5&workID=591&artistID=24