Blue Jay and Sparrow

I

 

Blue feather, blue flame—my father 

likes the blue jay over the sparrow 

my mother loves. The jay is a winner, 

 

the color of first prize. Blue 

is ablaze when the jay takes flight.  

Blue—my father's favorite color.  

 

Once when I was young helping 

with yard chores, I found 

a blue jay feather glistening in the light— 

 

and ran to show it to my father, who asked, 

 

It’s true—eyes like blue jade, 

eyes that startle when they catch 

yours—not brown like mine.  

 

My brother, a real looker, but loud 

and raucous, a blusterer always 

busting onto the scene, a prankster, 

 

his antics an unrelenting routine—

grabbing food off my plate, 

especially steak, hoarding cookies 

 

before downing the last two in the jar, 

wrecking my bike, my guitar, 

or raiding my tidy room, taking 

 

whatever he likes. But when I enter 

the jay bird’s nest, that tousled mess 

of a room, to retrieve what’s mine, 

 

he screams at the top of his lungs 

Thief! Thief! And when my friends 

come over, big brother—taller, stronger—

 

dares us all to take him on, 

goading, shouting, Do it! Do it!

What's worse is when his friends are over—

 

a gang of jays ganging up on a sparrow—

the blitz reaches its shrillest pitch.  

Yet my father forgives my brother 

 

for his noisy ways, his bad habits, 

just as he does the jay—too beautiful, 

too spirited not to forgive.  

 

My brother, too handsome, too boyish 

not to favor, always showing off, 

always stirring up my father’s pride.  

 

The natural athlete hurls himself 

into danger the way a jay bounds 

with ease through perilous tree tops.  

 

Diving headfirst to steal home plate, flying 

into the end zone for a touchdown pass, 

like a jay swooping to snatch 

 

a cicada on the wing—my brother, 

a winner, Fall River’s Boys League 

MVP, every year, every sport, 

 

taking first prize. And so for years, 

I kept that glistening blue feather—

perfect, beautiful as his eyes—placing it 

 

in an old leather box my father gave me, 

stashing it under my lucky jersey, 

my blue baseball jersey, 

 

certain it would give me power—

to play like him, to be handsome like him, 

to win my father’s pride.  

 

 

II

 

After a fast storm, the month 

he turned thirteen, my brother found 

a fallen nest of baby sparrows, 

 

song sparrows—the parents perished.  

He came to me with the nest of gaping 

mouths, saying, We’ve got to save them, 

 

or they’ll die. Do it. Do it now!  his eyes 

flickering—blue neon lights on the blink. 

Since when did he care about sparrows? 

 

Still, how could I refuse? I placed the nest 

of nestlings in a small box, and 

all through the day for days, we fed them

 

taking turns. And though we never 

minced words, now we minced worms, 

not once missing a feeding.  

 

They grew, and when they fledged, 

flying away, my brother gave me the empty 

nest and said, You should have this 

 

 

now she'll love me the most. I smiled 

and took the tidy nest and pierced it 

with that glistening blue feather. 

 

It sits on my shelf—like something 

from ritual or lore, like the funny hat 

my grandfather wore at secret meetings 

 

of his fraternal order, or like some lost 

species of bird, mild as a dove, wingless, 

self-conscious, having only one feather.