a sparrow flew too near the center –
he was somewhat jaded, somewhat careless,
the world being what it is these days –
in the city where everything is something else
so you can’t locate a leaf in a whirlwind
but he liked the square opposite the university
known once to einstein and bonhoeffer
who sometimes left their studies at night
and heard the mobs entering the opera house
and thought life makes sense, doesn’t it.
After all his nose sniffing, the sparrow landed
like a fleck of dandruff on a brown shirt.
He spotted other sparrows and the preoccupied
strolling arm in arm across the square
and – puzzled – a couple kneeling
before thick glass set into gray pavers,
not knowing there was a memorial under
the stones of perfectly white bookshelves,
empty as the thronged streets after the sirens,
on this spot where once the fuhrer shrilled
and whipped his party boys into misbehavior –
that is, to burning books hauled from the library
across the street. The sparrow skipped sideways,
quicker than quick, as sparrows will do
when curious. But really nothing
there much to see presented itself, just
a few spiders racing back and forth, fixing
nets around minuscule wings, wings slighter
than torn fingernails. The sparrow moved on,
letting warm thermals loft him out of Berlin
where, you’ll agree, nothing was happening,
towards the latest dustup in the desert region.
– Daniel Daly
