The Meaner Creatures (Poem)

Have you ever seen the sparrow falling?

As twilight,

like a lilting drawl,

spills with heavy summer haze,

and the violet hour of fading light,

slips along feathers like a purple bruise.

And the shadow of the paler things,

move and slither at the closing of the day,

for after they have basked their scales and tails in the sun drenched golden shade,

each dark thing,

starved,

will feed as the light begins to fade.

And every creature,

in piggish fashion,

will fill a belly full of worm,

or rat,

or snake,

a query weaker than their own fang and claw.

Like you,

little sparrow,

who came in flurried mania to this place,

filled with life to feed,

to fill up this unrequited heart,

a desperation you called redemption and savior,

a belly you wished finally full.

But the owl saw you sparrow,

spied you in its amber sight,

for she knows the place the sparrows go to dive,

to flap fragile wings and pull worms from the earth.

And she caught you,

little sparrow, in the zephyr of her wingspan,

in the blade of her beak,

in the tear of her claws.

The owl saw the sparrow diving,

this frenzied forage for heaven in the detritus of the dirt.

This little sparrow,

blinded to the bird bones that feed the worms below,

in this hunted place where sparrows fall,

and the meaner creatures feed.

bvk, 2018.