Sparrow Near Defeat

Drew and I struggled to get out the door on time on a sultry Monday morning. The grass was loaded with dew, making it hard to negotiate in slippery sandals. My bag, filled with two bottles of water, my daytimer, various paperwork needing attention, my purse, and sundry other little things I would need throughout the day, weighed heavily on my shoulder. I promised myself to find an ergonomic backpack soon before I injured myself hauling things like a packmule.

Drew was fairly quiet, having just rolled out of bed. I am ruthless with him in the morning, trying to force him to maintain a normal school hour type of schedule. If I don't, he falls into sleeping until afternoon and staying up half the night. Easy habit to get into. Hard to discipline yourself out of. He agrees in theory, but practice is something else again.

Just outside our apartment building stands a mid-sized blue spruce tree. As I was passing its graceful boughs, I noticed a sparrow hovering hesitantly near the top of the tree, gingerly putting one claw and then the other on a skinny little branch. It looked like the needles were sharp and the poor little thing couldn't find a safe place to light. I stopped for a moment to watch the drama unfold.

The tiny bird backed off and tried a new approach to the same branch. Again, the claws danced lightly here and there trying to find a spot to land. Three times the little bird worked to find a resting place on the blue spruce tree. I wondered that it didn't just give up and fly to the nearby hardwood trees. Yet it kept trying.

Finally, the bird found its resting place and allowed the weight of its body to slowly relax onto the branch, its little feet firmly wrapped around the pithy center of the branch. Just when I thought the bird had accomplished his mission, the spindly branch bent under the weight and the little bird tumbled off into thin air where the flapping of wings began all over again.

Firmly drawn into the drama, I set my bag down to watch. It took a full ten minutes for the bird to at long last come to rest in the top of the blue spruce. In minutes, mosquitoes began to hover around the branch, and the clever bird flashed its beak this way and that, snapping up breakfast with no effort at all. I finally understood the persistence of its actions.

Meanwhile, Drew was a full three blocks ahead of me, and I was the one working to get where I needed to be. I wondered if the sparrow, who had not let the tree defeat its needs, was chuckling as I slip slided across the wet grass after my retreating son.