Hobble Creek Review
| Jason Irwin |
THE HOUSE SPARROW
Walking home from the post office I found the severed head
of a House Sparrow, lying on the sidewalk.
A speck of blood adorned its feathers like a jewel,
just below its blue black bill.
Not knowing why, I scooped the head up in my right hand,
and for several blocks, carried it like a coin, a good luck charm,
or a long awaited piece of mail.
What would I gain from carrying the severed head of a House Sparrow
I can not say. What, if it could, would it possibly tell me
about its life or death, its last moments of flight?
If the severed head of the House Sparrow could speak to me,
one creature of the earth to another, with honesty and respect,
would it admit, that like man, the House Sparrow has been known
to invade and conquer the weaker of its species?
Would it tell me of the distances it has flown?
From peak to peak, branch to branch, the winters it flew south?
Would it boast, like the well traveled tend to do,
about all the places it has seen?
Would it expound on its love for butterflies, primroses
and the symphonies of Mahler?
Would it laugh at our constant worry over tomorrow,
our daily bread, where we’ll lay our heads?
What parables would the House Sparrow tell
about our laboring, our need for dominion and order,
Would it speak of vengeance and forgiveness,
and how they are merely two branches, cut from the same tree,
or how time is nothing more than a fistful of wind?
WHERE YOU ARE
How long has it been? You can’t recall.
The distance incalculable,
like genealogy in the Bible,
or the litany of regrets
you listened to your father recite
as he drove down familiar streets,
lined with all that remained
of his dreams.
That blissful summer day
you stood in your grandparents’ backyard
eating tiny bulbs of garlic, still burns
in your memory, how the hazy sun
blanketed the narrow wing of your shoulder,
your grandmother, how immaculate she looked
in her heels and Sunday wig,
framed in the kitchen window, and your grandfather,
in the garden, turning tomatoes in his calloused
hands. School days the scent of his pipe
followed you through third period History,
when you learned all those watered-down versions
about Democracy and how the west was won.
Now you look back on it all--a past
that never belonged to you--
how you raged, so impatient
in front of the bathroom mirror,
just dying to shave, to feel the blade
against your skin,
as if you had any idea what it took
to be a man, but who would have believed
you’d end up like this:
late thirties, hair receding, still working
that stupid job you promised yourself
you’d quit long ago and all those dreams:
dead and buried and now
you wake each morning only to find
this is where you are.
Walking home from the post office I found the severed head
of a House Sparrow, lying on the sidewalk.
A speck of blood adorned its feathers like a jewel,
just below its blue black bill.
Not knowing why, I scooped the head up in my right hand,
and for several blocks, carried it like a coin, a good luck charm,
or a long awaited piece of mail.
What would I gain from carrying the severed head of a House Sparrow
I can not say. What, if it could, would it possibly tell me
about its life or death, its last moments of flight?
If the severed head of the House Sparrow could speak to me,
one creature of the earth to another, with honesty and respect,
would it admit, that like man, the House Sparrow has been known
to invade and conquer the weaker of its species?
Would it tell me of the distances it has flown?
From peak to peak, branch to branch, the winters it flew south?
Would it boast, like the well traveled tend to do,
about all the places it has seen?
Would it expound on its love for butterflies, primroses
and the symphonies of Mahler?
Would it laugh at our constant worry over tomorrow,
our daily bread, where we’ll lay our heads?
What parables would the House Sparrow tell
about our laboring, our need for dominion and order,
Would it speak of vengeance and forgiveness,
and how they are merely two branches, cut from the same tree,
or how time is nothing more than a fistful of wind?
WHERE YOU ARE
How long has it been? You can’t recall.
The distance incalculable,
like genealogy in the Bible,
or the litany of regrets
you listened to your father recite
as he drove down familiar streets,
lined with all that remained
of his dreams.
That blissful summer day
you stood in your grandparents’ backyard
eating tiny bulbs of garlic, still burns
in your memory, how the hazy sun
blanketed the narrow wing of your shoulder,
your grandmother, how immaculate she looked
in her heels and Sunday wig,
framed in the kitchen window, and your grandfather,
in the garden, turning tomatoes in his calloused
hands. School days the scent of his pipe
followed you through third period History,
when you learned all those watered-down versions
about Democracy and how the west was won.
Now you look back on it all--a past
that never belonged to you--
how you raged, so impatient
in front of the bathroom mirror,
just dying to shave, to feel the blade
against your skin,
as if you had any idea what it took
to be a man, but who would have believed
you’d end up like this:
late thirties, hair receding, still working
that stupid job you promised yourself
you’d quit long ago and all those dreams:
dead and buried and now
you wake each morning only to find
this is where you are.
Jason Irwin's poetry has appeared in Blue Collar Review, Miller's Pond,
Sycamore Review, Confrontation, Lumina, and Off the Coast. In 2005 his
Some Days It's A Love Story won the Slipstream Press Chapbook Contest.
Jason's first book Watering the Dead won the 2006/2007 Transcontinental
Poetry Award and was published in 2008 by Pavement Saw Press.
Sycamore Review, Confrontation, Lumina, and Off the Coast. In 2005 his
Some Days It's A Love Story won the Slipstream Press Chapbook Contest.
Jason's first book Watering the Dead won the 2006/2007 Transcontinental
Poetry Award and was published in 2008 by Pavement Saw Press.
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