Sparrow's Song

Sparrow's Song

Once there lived a russet Sparrow who rustled to and fro in the forest carrying messages. She took the croak of a tree frog to a distant tree. She carried the clicks between insects, the whistles and hoots between birds, the sound of breezes ruffling feathers or wings...She was forever flying back and forth between one creature and another–so much so that she had forgotten her own message.

One day, tired of all the busy-ness and busybodies, she sat down at home and stayed there. Finally, she had some time to think. She thought and thought.

"What is it that I want to say? What?" she wondered.

Just as she was sure her thinking was getting somewhere, a squirrel suddenly pushed through the high grass hiding her home. He popped his head over the edge of her nest and a piece of straw tickled his nose making it crinkle.

"Sparrow?" he sputtered through a sneeze.

She made no answer, nor movement.

Squirrel "ah-hemed". Still nothing. So, he decided to through a handful of sunflower seeds over the side of the nest, smacking Sparrow in the beak. She rubbed the sore spot and her feelings.

"Why did you do that?" Sparrow asked.

Squirrel shrugged. "It's payment in advance for your services. Now, if you just go over to Shorty the squirrel and say..."

"I'm afraid I can't," interrupted Sparrow.

Squirrel blinked. "What do you mean you can't?"

"It's just I have something buzzing around my head, butI can't hear it because my head's so full of  everyone else's voices."

Squirrel blinked some more. "But delivering messages is your job!"

"Is it?" answered Sparrow. "Well, someone else will just have to do it until I can figure things out."

Squirrel was at a loss for words.

"If you'll excuse me, I'd like to go back to meditating," said Squirrel.

Squirrel had no idea what meditating meant, used to just scurrying about as he was. However, Sparrow had closed her eyes and he felt quite ignored. He had no choice but to scamper through the grass once again.

Left alone to her musings, Sparrow felt the inkling of an idea catch up with her. She started humming, and...

"Shirley?"

The sound from the humming vibrated and escaped from Sparrow's beak. Try as she might, she had lost the hum. Only her sister called her Shirley, which is the name her mother had given her. Sue and Shirley it had been in the nest, but out in the world she was just Sparrow.

Shirley knew it wouldn't be as easy to send her sister away as it was the squirrel. Sighing, she said, "Yes, Sue?"

"I came all the way over here because Squirrel told me how rude you were to him. What's this all about?"

Sue lived a foot away in the grasses near the pond, but Shirley bit her tongue for a few moments as she watched a gnat climb a stalk in front of her. Finally, she said:

"Remember that song that mom taught us in the nest?"

Sue nodded, but cocked her head quizzically.

"Well, I can't remember it. Could you sing it for me?" Shirley asked.

Starting to understand, Sue nodded again, and then started singing:

Sing little ones

When it's said and done

each adds a twig to the nest.

It twists and it turns

in the fabric supporting us

until needed

for a new nest.

Call out my sweets!

Say your names!

Make your own song, too!

Sue trailed off and soon only the whirring of fly wings could be heard. Shirley's eyes had become a deeper and deeper brown as Sue was singing, and now they resembled the color of the Ash tree. Shirley felt a song erupting form her center that catapulted out of her beak. It was so strong that Sue hopped back a bit and hit into the side of the nest.

Shirley kept repeating the melody that had been waiting deep inside of her all along: rich and delicate at the same time. Finally, out of breath, she stood gloriously puffing her chest out.

And then she noticed there was quite a gathering in the grasses surrounding her–the whole community of sparrows had come out as well as the squirrels and anyone that she had helped in the past.

The silence held her song in a pocket of sound, ricocheting through the grasses and over the pond...

Photo: <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/veronika_andrews-16688553/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5377927">Veronika Andrews</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com//?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=5377927">Pixabay</a>

Story: Kristen Mastromarchi 

i