Song Sparrow · Station Road Bridge Trail

Song Sparrow

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by Virginia Konchan

Female song sparrows are smart and strategic:
they’re attracted to not just the male’s song,
but how well it reflects their ability to learn.
The greater the repertoire, and incorporation
of a song tutor’s legacy, the better chances
the male has of capturing a female’s heart.
Is the inversion of anthropomorphism our
understanding that birds are more evolved
than anthropoid’s awkward mating dance?
Favoring brushland and marshes, sparrows
can also thrive in human-dominated areas:
suburbs, agricultural fields, and roadsides.
Their muted coloration of russet and gray
belie their unique gift of musical repartee:
one of their songs resembles the opening
notes of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5.
A particular song is determined by pitch,
rhythm, and timbre, and most sparrows
know up to 1000 variations on 20 tunes.
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
Jesus asked his disciples, rhetorically.
And not one of them will fall to the
ground apart from your Father,
He said, in a parable about care.
Even the sparrow finds a home
where she may lay her young
at your altars, O Lord of hosts,
sang King David in the Psalms.
Sparrows distinguish between
neighbors and strangers among
them on the basis of their songs,
and shuffle and repeat their songs
as if curating a Spotify playlist.
To hear them is to feel alive;
to be thought of as a symbol
of God’s concern for creation
is no less astounding, it’s true.
Creator of muses, music, flight:
I’m trilling these songs for you.

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