30 Days Wild - Day 7 - Sparrow Poem

Today, in between putting broken egg shells around the base of my courgette seedlings and sheep wool pellets around the tiny pea shoots (to persuade the slugs to go elsewhere), I spent some time on the garden bench jotting down poems. Here's one I wrote earlier...

Passer domesticus
Scruffy urchins of the bird world
street-wise, cock-sure
surviving by your wits
and your hard-faced cheek,
like 'Angels with Dirty Faces.'

In your crop-eating-outlaw days
you had a price on your head,
were picked off for pennies
by persecuting posses.
Then you learned which side 
your bread was buttered 
and muscled in on small town gardens.

You were chased away from feeders
by people who preferred
the glamour of goldfinches
the bally-hoo of blue tits.
But now you're rather rare
and they want you back,
will gladly sacrifice
their finely tilled seed beds
to your early evening dust bath.