Fabulous Finds -- "Christmas Sparrow -- Billy Collins"

Christmas Sparrow by Billy Collins*

The first thing I heard this morning

was a rapid flapping sound, soft, insistent --

wings against glass as it turned out

downstairs when I saw the small bird

rioting in the frame of a high window,

trying to hurl itself through

the enigma of glass into the spacious light.

Then a noise in the throat of the cat

who was hunkered on the rug

told me how the bird had gotten inside,

carried in the cold night

through the flap of a basement door,

and later released from the soft grip of teeth.

On a chair, I trapped its pulsations

in a shirt and got it to the door,

so weightless it seemed

to have vanished into the nest of cloth.

But outside, when I uncupped my hands,

it burst into its element,

dipping over the dormant garden

in a spasm  of wingbeats

then disappeared over a row of tall hemlocks.

For the rest of the day,

I could feel its wild thrumming

against my palms as I wondered about

the hours it must have spent

pent in the shadows of that room,

hidden in the spiky branches

of our decorated tree, breathing there

among the metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,

its eyes open, like mine as I lie in bed tonight

picturing this rare, lucky sparrow

tucked into a holly bush now,

a light snow tumbling through the windless dark.

*Billy Collins was Poet Laureate of the United States from 2001 to 2003 and Poet Laureate of New York State from 2004 to 2006.

Source:  “Aimless Love; New and Selected Poems” by Billy Collins

Available from www.amazon.com

Thank you, CJ, for sharing this fabulous collection of poems.