By Billy Collins
Featured Art: The Cock Sparrow by George Edwards
Up to this point
I had assumed that He and I
had little or nothing in common
but one morning as I sat
in a blue Adirondack chair
in the middle of an expanse of lawn
though I seemed only
to be staring into space,
I realized that I, too,
had my eye on a sparrow,
who hopped around a little
in the grass then hurriedly flew away.
Billy Collins‘s latest collection is Whale Day (Random House, 2020). He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Originally appeared in NOR 14.