“Long gone,” sang the sparrow.

“Long gone are the days of my heart.”

It chirped this tune day and night, making the world wonder

In the face of its sorrows.

“Long gone,

Long gone are the days.

The daisies have been plucked,

The field lays bare.

And long gone are the days of my heart.”

“What days,” I wish to ask. “What days do you speak of?”

But I do not ask. How could I? The sparrow has seen more than I, surely.

“Long gone,

Long gone are the days

That have flown by

Like puffs of dandelion seeds

Drenched in my memories.

Still alive,

Preserved in my nostalgia.

Long gone are the days of my heart

Long gone are the days of my heart

Long gone;

They’ve gone

Never to return again.

Long gone are the days when my heart did sing

And so my mouth must instead.”

It sits there on an old, wooden fence.

I stand close, but do not scare it,

For the sparrow’s self is its own sorrow,

Own fright.

And so I do not scare it as I come closer.

“When were the days,” I ask, “when your heart did sing?”

“Yesterday,” it replied. “I am always too late.”

‘But,” I told it, “you’ve sat here all my life and before.”

“Yes,"  it replied. “I still cannot fly into tomorrow.”

And it carried on its tune, as I wondered at its sorrows.

“Long gone,

Long gone are the days.

The roses I cared for

Smithereens now.

The coffee-ground dirt

A pile of dust.

Where did they go?

Long they’ve been gone

And I cannot find them anywhere.”

The sparrow started to sway.

“If you cannot go into the future,” I told the sparrow,

“Then why not go to the past?”

The sparrow shook its head at me, and chirped a pretty little note.

“I still cannot fly into yesterday,” it told me,

“And I cannot wait here for any more than today.”

And so the sparrow sang as I wondered at its sorrows.

“Long gone,

Long gone are the days.

I am tired of waiting and chasing.

Long gone are the days of my heart.”

“Sparrow,” I told the poor soul with his wings spread wide.

“I believe your heart may be inside you.”

The sparrow looked at me with it glittering eyes. It looked at its own chest with patience.

“If only,” it told me, “that was the kind I have been seeking.”

And so it sang on, before, through, and after my time, the world wondering at its sorrows.