By: Jeff Lewis

The Last Sparrow

As days become shorter
and shadows grow long,
the verdant tone of Summer
yields to the palette of Fall.
A sparrow appears on the grass
dampened by frost the evening before.
The little bird should have long departed
to more benevolent fields.
He takes a spiritless peck at the ground
then alights once more,
to join the gathering flock overhead.
In the urgency of their cries
I hear all manner of things.
I sense their nomadic yearning
as well as the uncertain dread
of all that borders that which is known.
They call to me as well,
as the last sparrow of Summer
fades on the distant horizon.

A Line

A line exists midway the known
and that we think we know,
undefined as that between
a dream and the moment of waking.
Where the cluttered attic of our minds
speak to the longing of our hearts.
It lives not far from remembrance
or those things we choose to forget.

That nascent sense of clarity is lost
before we even held it in our hands
as we struggle to make sense
of the broken pieces left behind.
We try to understand the senselessness
of so many things along the way,
and stare into the empty spaces in their wake
resigned, at last, to the unknowable.
Like angels on the cusp of understanding
they were mortal all the while.