SPARROW WAVES

From the window pane
rice fields stretch and shimmer
westward slivers a path
out of gaze along the winding vale.
Ancient farmers gave names
to winds from certain places
with a sense of the invisible
that I first felt and remembered

Sea from the blue sky,
thousands of sparrows
dappled its face
I didn't know there
was a word for life's desires
to leap out of itself
now looking down and--
swooping--past my window
and I stand still in wonder.