Café L’Aroma, Boston

Some days I wonder
when and where they’ll happen,
the epiphanies.
One August morning
I found myself leaning into
a book that wanted to tell me
why poetry matters –
how it makes visible
truths we can’t see,
and sings us beyond
the long et cetera of small virtues.
I knew all this, but was still
strangely glad in the reading.
And then I noticed them:
a family of sparrows
all brown and bustle
and hop, looking about
nervously with
their soft, swiveling
heads, intent on their work
with what seemed
a reckless glee
or gratitude.
One by one
they stalked
the flowerboxes over-
flowing with
petunias pink and
purple and white, plucking
their silky heads petal by petal,
tasting a beauty we’d seen
only with our eyes.

1 August 2008
M. S. Burrows
Theologian-in-Residence at Old South Church (Boston) and
Professor of the History of Christianity