As I sit listening to the chirping of our local sparrows, a delight in these gardens, I'm minded to post a poem I wrote some years ago, on a quiet day in south Shropshire.
The silence of this holy place
is being pleasantly disturbed, sparrows,
by your constant conversation.
I sit in the sun below your eaves
chasing words down the pages
of my book. Your distracting voices
had been the familiar background
to all my growing years, but now
I hardly hear you in the streets and squares
that were once your certain home.
You were ordinary then, you chirping sparrows -
but now my heart aches just to hear you.
Back then I thought your plumage dull and grey:
today I understand the true beauty
of your dress. So much we lose when we fail to see
God's loveliness in the everyday,
God's grace in our neighbours and familiars.
Common sparrows, you were always special-blessed,
had I just seen it;
and I thank my God that on this gentle day
you chirp and chirrup as his angels
bearing his message for my soul's good.
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