Geoff Page: Two Poems

A Single Sparrow

The present life of man, O king, seems to me like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged.

—Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, 731

I think a lot about that bird

flying through the mead-hall,

straight on through from door to door

and winter either end,

those givens of the rain and snow,

the fire-warmth and the alcohol,

the candlelight uneven,

a language quite unknown to sparrows.

The point is clear enough although

some questions trouble slightly.

Why a door at either end

open to the cold?

Why not stop to hop the floor

and check below the tables,

as is the way with sparrows?

What memories would a bird still carry

later in the snowy weather?

Reds and blacks, the smoke, the smells,

the women bringing roasted meats,

some snatches from a drinking song?

Or would it be that quieter part,

the thane with all his metaphysics,

the king with goblet nodding

at the passage of a sparrow?

Geoff Page

Sailing

Sailing past my father’s age

surrounded by the whirl of chance,

I’m headed for my mother’s now,

smiling at my spry advance.

Ninety-two seems so far off,

unthinkable when seen from here—

fifteen years’ uncertainty

not knowing which disease to fear.

A growing sense of time’s prognosis

infiltrates one’s later verse.

Death’s a trifle final but

Eternal Life could well be worse.

 Geoff Page