Sparrows seem to be a popular topic for poetry. From Catullus to Keats, Bill Collins to Charles Bukowski they appear as various symbols – with the added twist of many of these poets citing each other.

My choice for today, though, is a writer I introduced some time before – Paul Laurence Dunbar who was one of the first black poets to rise to national fame in the late 1800s. You’ll remember him from “When the caged bird sings….”

I was reminded this morning that the poem’s message to heed what is important is anything but trite or outdated. Ady Barkan, Yale Law School graduate and a fighter for social justice at the Center for Popular Democracy, is in hospital. I have followed his work for some time, unaware until recently that he is dying from ALS and writing basically with eye movement commands these days. In his early 30s, a few years older than my own sons and already a father.

The message this morning was personal compared to his usual politics: “If you have your health, I urge you to cherish it every day. Say thanks for it, and never take it for granted. Make the best use you can of your brief time on this earth. Do today what will make you proud tomorrow, proud on your deathbed.”

I find myself uttering it often, to myself and others, oh, think of what’s really important, carpe diem, etc. Writing about it today because I MEAN IT, and want to honor people who’ve been in environments of Jim Crow or on their deathbed having the strength to remind us all. Even we, perhaps privileged mortals all, can make significant choices. And we should.

End of sermon.

Here is Janequin’s Bird Song:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=51&v=x-dkdgzYZbQ

And here is the real thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdaE7eaayKM

Photographs are from last Friday’s explosion of sparrows out in the sunshine: White crested, golden crested, house and song sparrows abounded.