Winter Sparrows

His long white hair falls in wisps
on a slick green jacket;
he lugs a shopping bag
                                  leans
over the curb's edge, watching for the bus,
then paces
                crumbling
bread in his free hand
                                onto the sidewalk
for winter sparrows. Like an aging Pan,
he paces
            surrounded by small brown birds skittering
on needle-thin legs.

Another moment opens
my grandmother
                         her hair white
as alley snow
                    waving crumbs onto the icy wind
through all the Brooklyn winters of my childhood
                                                                        her face
solemn, as if measuring how much depends
on this giving of bread.
                                  It is still falling, these many years
after her death
                      like manna
blessing the city streets.

                                                      © Pesha Joyce Gertler

Published in King Count Arts Commission Literary Journal