(They were once everywhere—flitting through courtyards, nesting in the quiet eaves, stitching our mornings with song. The house sparrow was not a creature of the wilderness; it was part of our breath, our rhythm, our childhood.
Now, they are gone.
Not with a storm, not with fanfare—just gone.
With them, something else has faded too. The patience of waiting. The habit of watching. The art of listening. A quiet grace we once held in the soft corners of life.
Do we mourn only the sparrow—or a world that no longer makes room for the small, the fragile, the ordinary miracles?
This ache, this question, gave rise to the verse below.)
My six-year-old granddaughter asks me,
with bright eyes and curious wonder,
“Dadu, what’s a house sparrow?
Can you show me one?”
I pause—
The question hangs,
light as a feather,
heavy as memory.
Once, they were everywhere—
Darting through open windows,
Perched on sun-warmed tiles,
Stitching dawn with their songs.
We left crumbs on sills,
Waited for wings to flutter near,
Shared a quiet joy with the unnoticed, the small.
Now—silence.
Did they vanish with the wind
that no longer stirs our courtyards?
Or fade into glass and chrome—
a world too sleek for their tiny feet?
Was it poison in the fields,
the drone of machines,
the price of progress?
Or something deeper—
Did we forget how to wait,
how to listen,
how to care for what doesn’t demand attention?
Perhaps the city bred new rulers—
Pigeons that crowd,
Kites that claim the sky.
Did the sparrows retreat,
or were they simply forgotten?
Their absence is more than silence—
It is the vanishing of a way of being.
But tell me—
What else have we lost?
The gentleness of small acts?
The warmth of quiet presence?
The humility to coexist?
One day, perhaps, they will return—
A door left ajar, a world made softer,
Their songs threading back
into the fabric of morning.
But will we be ready?
Will we have remembered
what it means to notice,
to cherish,
to share space with wonder?
I take her hand and whisper—
“Maybe, my dear, if we wait,
not just for sparrows,
but for all we’ve forgotten—
maybe they will come home again.”
scribo ad LX 