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Who will be feeding the sparrows

When we are back home?

Each morning as we ate breakfast

On the terrace, in the sun,

A squawking flock would join us

More confident by the day

Till soon we found them waiting

Perched on the Oleander

Or on the iron gate

Waiting for me to crumble biscuits

Or make them some toast.

For the next ten minutes

Up to a dozen would take turns

To swoop down and settle

Until they had cleared

The patch of earth.

One morning when they had all lifted

Back up into the branches,

A tiny mouse peeped out

From behind the palm trunk.

Cautious and silent

It moved to find the tiny specks

Rejected by the sparrows,

Then shot back to the safety

Of the grass beneath the hedge.

Three times more she came that morning

But never after that

While we were there.

Back home in St Leonards

Six hundred miles away

I wonder who is feeding

Our sparrows today?

Is the mouse still living

Its solitary life?

Maybe it has family,

Children or a wife?

But then I need not worry

You have it all in hand

For not a one lies outside

Your eternal plan,

And what of us who trust you

To love us as a friend?

If we care for the sparrows

Your care for us won't end.

Brian Hick November 2015

©copyright Sally Hick 6.11.26