To Ninety

To Ninety

by Robyn Sarah

A city sparrow
touches down
on a bare branch

in the fork of a tree
through whose arms
the snow is sifting —

swipes his beak
against wood, this side
then that,

and flies away:
what sight
could be more common?

Yet I think
for such sights alone
I would live to ninety.

"To Ninety" by Robyn Sarah, from Questions About the Stars. © Brick Books, 1998. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

 

From "The Writer's Almanac"

image by Kohl Threlkeld -- http://kthrelkeld.blogspot.com/2008/07/young-bird-old-hands.html