Learning from a Sparrow

The cup before me is almost empty now but still I’m not inclined to leave this little room. For one thing, my chair is very comfortable and faces two Currier and Ives prints. There’s a clean bleakness about “The Blacksmith Shop in Winter” and a wide awake feeling in “Winter Morning,” with it’s fresh snowfall. On the pine hutch is a bronze school bell that has called many an impatient child in at recess time. A large cup is there that once kept neat the bushy moustache of an ancestor. A wooden mortar and pestle stands proudly retired beside a plate inscribed with the poem “The Quiet Room” written by Whittier when questioned about his Quaker faith. It is quiet here. The clock ticks and the fire crackles in the grate.

Outside the pines are beginning to bend in the wind and by the window the birds are clinging to the swaying suet rack. One rusty little sparrow has lighted on the mound of snow on the feeder, immersing his tiny legs completely and seems to be studying me. I shiver for him. Beneath him his friends squabble over the seeds. Are you waiting for your chance little fellow? Brave Mrs. Downy Woodpecker doesn’t mind the slow movement of my hand that lifts the cup to my lips. The plump chick-a-dees flit to the feeder and away. Ten minutes have passed and the sparrow still sits with his twiggy legs buried in the snow. There is a place on the feeder now. Come on down. Your legs must be so cold. The wind is blustery now and swirls the fine snow from the pines about. I’d like to go now but must see why the little fellow on the feeder does not move. Downy Woodpecker has replaced his mate on the suet, looking as though some-one splendid had touched him on the head and left a glowing mark. The quiet juncos are collecting the scatterings beneath the feeder. Twenty minutes have passed and the little sparrow, two inches high with freezing little sticks for legs still sits in the snow. Once the wind blew him but he fluttered his wings and braced his feet and held on. Does the red from my sweater attract him? Come down into the feeder where the wind is not so harsh. Your friends, the nut-hatches, are here walking upside down on the suet. I know you’re a contemplative bird but don’t be so stubborn. Have you a message for me? Is it that you can stand for thirty minutes in the freezing weather up to your feathers in snow and that you are really not a bird at all but a miracle? The sparrow cocked his head and dropped down into the feeder. So that was the message, my little friend.