The Gray Sparrow
A gray sparrow
Hair
Like a cloud
Always in motion
Small
Always working
Working to get somewhere
Somewhere
She could never find
A gray sparrow
Who has been aging
The Cheap hollow wooden door
It opens
A lady staring through the window
Light blue stained glass
Startled, she turns around
Her hands shake as she gets up with her walker
I Never really knew her
Every few years
Saw her during holidays
Presents, clothes, pockets filled with chocolate
Tried the clothes on
Too big
Too small
Age five
Age seventeen
An aging mind
Forgetting its place in the world
Before it even had one
My parents would tell me
If you made her a crepe
She would give you business
If you swore to your life
She would give you hers
No questions asked
Cooking
Came first, always
She cooked for a living
She did it for herself
She did it for my father
She Came to New York
In 1952 she ended up as a waitress
Two and a half years later. My father joined her.
Finally, years later, she opened a restaurant
Called Crepe Suzette
It was featured in the New York Times
My dad, already in college
Too late
My parents would laugh
About memories they had of her
Every morning she’d get my sister a Croissant
When we visited her in France
After she left the city because she thought it was “the busy life”
My sister knew her as a grandmother
Who cared deeply about my sister’s life
I knew her as a face, a shadow
As a picture on our windowsill
Those beady eyes that looked at me with disgrace
Her face would light up when my sister came in to the room
but it didn’t change when I came in
I was unseen
All she heard was
Wind
As I walked by
Took me off her light blue stained glass
I’d heard of her
Who she was
Her fun-loving self
Remorse, filled me up
I had met her
But in a way
I never really knew her
And like her life
It was too late.
The Gray sparrow
Decayed
Away.
Dale
You start out with a smile
Scruffy hair
A knitted hat
Selling old records
And torn up books
Working for a little
A day
Never begged
Walking street by street
You get money
Because people see your kindness
See the hardships
Imprinted on your face
Walking street by street
You meet a person
Keen in the eyes
Sly in the mouth
“Instead of a quarter, lemme have a cigarette”
You tell him
“Things change overtime.”
He tells you
“Bullshit. That’s what they want you to think.”
He spits some tobacco on the floor and says
“They want you to believe in change
Focus all your fucking energy on change
So you forget you are dying.”
The taunting idea
Dancing on his lips
Wrath so strong
You have to give in
Walking street by street
I don’t see you anymore
The times I did
You leaned on a barren stone wall
You are just waiting for the next laugh
And the next time your wild eyes come back
Red shot eyes, bursting with laughter
Masking the sorrow
Waiting
Walking street by street
They all left
So did you
But you are still leaning on the barren stone wall
Head hanging low
You can’t lift it anymore
Looking to the grimy sidewalk
As if things would change
You don’t sell stuff anymore
I see you walking
Begging, broken
Man a quarter doesn’t change you much, but a cigarette will.
You walked street by street.
Shattered Pieces
You were once so joyful
The funny sarcastic one
The one with the long gleaming black hair
Always happy to be yourself
You came back after a long break
You’ve changed
You’ve grown
Vulnerable
Came back with a reflection you didn’t like
Shame flickered in you eyes
Every time you saw yourself
You were a girl
Sweet and shy
Problem-free
A pleasure
You don’t smile anymore
The times you do it’s just a way to hide
You seemed enlightened
But I see you now
Insecurities eating away at you
Turning into the person
You swore you’d never be
You are still around
But you are internally dying
A joyless flower
Eyes sagging
All I hear you say is
“It’s not a big deal”
But I see how it is hurting you
I see how it has changed you
Everybody has their problems
Locked up inside of them
The shattered glass inside them
That never says a word
But in some of us it cuts us
Showing the glass to the world
At that moment
All you can do is
Let it cut you up
Some of us it doesn’t matter
For some of us it cuts you up
It leaves you bare
I am hurt inside
Split inside
But I cannot do anything
When the shattered glass shows itself
No one can be saved
That broken part inside of us
Eats all of us away
It eats the ones who are bare
It eats the ones who cannot stand looking at the bare
Stand there and take in
All the chaos
When everything feels like
A train running to nothing
A train
Stopping at nothing
A train blowing away the bare
And internally crushing
The one who cannot stand looking at the bare
Aureole Ribes
Age 13, Grade 8
NYC Lab Middle School for Collaborative Studies
Gold Key
I enjoy reading your poetry on the gray sparrow. I knew her just a little but reading you, remember me her.
Cédric Meignant far away cousin