Tending & Tenderness

"To tend to the earth is always then to tend our destiny, our freedom, our hope." Bell Hooks

(art by Jackie Morris)

I found a dead sparrow on the sidewalk. I know it’s a female because she is smaller with light brown feathers and single wing bars. On a nearby branch, her mate watches over her. Flies have already started to circle and land on her tiny body.

Getting my Grandmother’s gardening spade, I first dig a small grave in a bed beneath an oak. When I have finished, I return to the sparrow and gather her body in my hands and carry her over to the grave. Her body only weighs as much as four pennies. I settle her in the ground and then cover her with soil. For some reason, as I do, I remember a hymn from my childhood, “His Eye is on the Sparrow.” The only difference is that the he now is the sparrow’s mate who is on a limb of the oak watching me as I bury his love. His song is mournful and melancholy fills me as well.

I buried this sparrow when I have not even buried the remains of my own Father.

Gazing up at the male sparrow with his large black spot on his throat that extends downward to his chest. He feels sorrow no less than I did when my Father died. This sparrow may even morn his lost mate for months.