Songs Of The Sparrow

Old songs make me nostalgic. They make everybody nostalgic, do they not? With me, it is different. Time stops. No, there are no memories or flashes from the past. There is just Now, still, quiet, afraid to move because it knows that it has frozen, very precariously and anything frozen is very brittle.Who wants to break it, even if it is just a moment in time?

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The song plays, drawing notes that make the moment’s frozen heart flutter…everything turns a shade of black and white, the sky turns overcast, the sun decides to hide behind a cloud for a while – what sun would want to cast light on the frozen shadows of yesterday? Winds calm down and there is just that very gentle breeze flowing in rhythm, lest it ruffle a feather…what wind would want to ruffle feathers that are cast in stone?

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There is only bird sound, the gentle chirping, mostly sparrows. No koyals, no crows. Just sparrows, for their sounds blend in with the past, like sugar in water. Neither happy nor sad, their songs walk in tandem with bygones. The clock stops. The second hand, especially, must stop. The Now will pass if it doesn’t. The Now will pass giving way to another Now…and nostalgia is about one frozen Now. Ghosts lurking in the dark shadows of your home become real, and if you looked closely enough without moving one bit, maybe you would see them too. They are real in that one moment because they can live only in that one frozen Now. Not outside of it, and so they show. For you to see.

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But suddenly, the song ends, the sun pops back into place, the air gushes into your home, your ghost-vision fades into nothingness, the heat filters back into the air, sounds become audible again, that faraway radio, that honking on the main street, that wailing child, that television, those footsteps above your home. Of course, you have the bird songs still…but are they strong enough to pull you back into their timelessness? Perhaps not. Perhaps other sounds are too loud. So they try…they do try, early in the morning, just before the sun rises and soon after it sets, they assault you with their songs.

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Now you know why everything freezes at twilight. Now you know why sparrow songs can be heard only at that time.