A common tongue for common things

Sparrowtalk

Let us speak in grey and brown words,
a common tongue for common things,
mute a need for flamboyance or panache,
talk to dullardly stones in their laysome
language. We might chitter among the
downwood, chat about how the hill
shadow has advanced so early in the
break, leave a marker of stick or flower
to compare in the slow coming days.



Let us converse in a calliope of meadow,
the fielding vernacular of crake and vireo,
warble where we are in relation to every-
thing else and, if appropriate, allude in
starling tones to a mutual dispassion.
We might remark on the paranoia of
quail, how they nearly always keep to
brush avoiding open spaces for fear
hawk may descend bearing talon rain.

Let us hush in the stealth of saxifrage,
avoiding the passerine plumage of the
orangefire paradise, its blue tongue
piercing the sky in lyrebird chording
if one listens closely enough. We will
be about the unseen this day, the per-
sistent invisible that pass unnoticed,
much as we do; the collective necessary
if we, and all of this, are to continue.

Joseph Gallo
November 2, 2009