We Are Sparrows And Our Children Are Sparrows

and the blackest
crow has come
to our nest.

The way we swoop
and dart so desperately
at the enormous,
unfeeling wings
of an adversary
whose eyes are black
whose feathers are black
whose talons are black-
red.

A terrible, high-pitched screaming
that no amount of swooping or darting will ease.
The undulating lines of us
pursuing a black tear
as it rips unstoppably
across a cloudless, blue sky.

So much frantic screeching and flying,
so much wild flailing and falling
and throwing ourselves against
something too impossibly large,
and then the stopping,

the final banking,
the turning home;

An unfamiliar, quiet place
of broken twigs and
cold feathers.