Sparrows are birds that no one notices.
Their existence is taken for granted, especially in urban environments, just like that of apartment blocks or parking lots. They are simply there. They are creatures that fly around, small, poor, timid, usually in brown-black-gray inconspicuous colors, poor only as sparrows in the middle of winter can be.
I don't know why, but almost every time I see them (and I see them every day) - they cause me a feeling of mild melancholy. Is it because they symbolize poverty or marginalization or something else or because of some bad movie in my head, who knows. Although they have a perfectly good voice and sing sparrow songs every morning, that feeling of melancholy still appears uninvited, from the side, from an unknown direction, for no particular reason other than the appearance of the sparrows.
But after a while, that feeling was supplemented by a feeling of some mercy. Small, poor, miserable, some shaggy, some colorful, thin and fat, sad and cheerful - I began to notice them and give food and water to the little poor things.
And they, in turn, bring gifts. Perhaps behind the existence of sparrows lies the fact that they are a small feathered container for the trapped souls of the invisible, the poor, the excluded, the isolated, the imprisoned, the powerless, the humiliated, the unfortunate...
The legend speaks of the evil side of Gautama Siddhartha, also known as the Buddha, who cursed the sparrows to be invisible until the end of the world. Namely, at the moment when the Buddha became enlightened - all living creatures came to bow before him. Tigers, cobras, dogs and rats, wasps, mosquitoes and people. The only ones missing were the sparrows, who, carried away by their play, foraging, and idleness, did not consider the event to be anything special. And so, towards the end of the ceremonies, attracted by the vast number of animals and birds, they appeared to see what was going on. Sincere curiosity, not the greatness of the Buddha, was the reason for their presence.
Buddha, enlightenedly angry that the sparrows dared not bow down, cursed them to be unnoticed until the end of the world, to remain on the margins of existence, at the end of perception...Poor little sparrows.
(Roger Mortis, 155)
