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Passer meae puellae

I picked it up and hardly felt its weight,

A chaffinch, lying just outside the door.

Unmarked, its summer plumage bright and clean

Belied the dull eye and the open claw.

How long had it been flying from the South,

How many days against a wind-swept sea

Before, exhausted, it had chanced to fall,

Epiring, on the path in front of me?

Though sheltered by our garden, where the birds

From Gillsman's Wood have fresh seed every day,

There was no time to rebuild vital strength

And so his gentle spirit slipped away.

Yet his short life, like every other soul,

Was precious to the love which makes us whole.

Brian Hick April 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 11.4.26