2/28/03
A young and vibrant brown sparrow
On growing up, grows restless
And spurns the caged security of its world.
Ignorant of the precarious height
On which its nest resides,
It perches as its world is perched
On the brink of a portentious space,
And, throwing itself into the air,
Must find its wings like newborn faiths
Or fall into itself and gravity.
II
Such is my faith in God,
And so fly I to fight the entropy of my soul.
Like a fledgling bird,
I must affirm my life
By quitting ignorance to die or fly.
I am equipped to glide through certain doubts
Sustained by the spreading of my wings
In hope of faith, if not in faith.
So carefully wrought was our world
We must fly in faith, for fear of falling.
III
And if a doubt curdles to despair
And a young bird's wings fold in abandon
And the ground gathers below the sparrow's plight,
Still an involuntary faith,
A special providence, saves the sparrow.
It flies even as it folds and dies.
So can I from ignorance take wing
Without the fear of a terminal doubt --
So can I cast myself into the sky,
Brave in my fledgling faith, like a young sparrow.
