George Bruce, feeding his garden sparrows, ponders man’s inhumanity to man (he is writing at the time of the Balkan wars) and his own inner regrets and shortcomings.
The two poems come from Today Tomorrow, his Collected Poems 1933-2000 (Polygon £14.99).
REBUKE
There was bread left over
at breakfast, a heel of brown bread,
and I broke it and put it on the stone
ledge at the window: and sparrows came,
a blackbird and a black-capped tit,
and it all went quickly.
And the next morning I did the same,
and it went quickly. Then
the bitter wind came and I kept
the window tight-shut, and a sparrow,
one sparrow, sat on a bush by the window
and cursed me in cheeps. So
I put out more bread, and its friends came
and munched and munched and munched,
and the next day the wind blew colder,
and I kept shut the window;
and the cheeping and cheepering went on.
Why should I fear a sparrow’s rebuke
When Sarajevo weeps its eyes out?
REPENTANCE
Now I am making a brown parcel
of all my tomorrows, each one a song
(but of how many I do not know)
to put on the ledge for the cheeping sparrows.
I could guess them, yet still would not know
how to deal with my stained futures.
Sparrows know how to treat
each moment of the day.
In the peek of an eye,
in the flirt of a wing,
in the peck of a beak
in the dust – they know
a meal from a mote.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article