His eye is on the sparrow
by Rosalind C Hughes
Have you walked through the market
or the big box store,
caught from the corner of an eye
an omen resting in the rafters?
They used to say a bird
in the house meant death.
Lies that sculpt us,
the scaffold of supremacy,
the conduits and pipework of racism
criss-cross the structure of a day;
but the sparrow refuses to recognize
the artifice by which we divide
and re-order creation.
That one,
heir to the earth
in the fluorescent heavens
of the grocery hall:
the sparrow cannot fall,
it will not fall uncaught
by the eye of God.
Featured image: House sparrow, by Hobbyfotowiki, CC0 (public domain dedication), via Wikimedia Commons
