Sparrow

The sparrow had been inside the church
for three days.
No one knew how it entered.
Each morning
the priest found it
above the altar,
moving among the rafters
with the small confidence
of something
that had mistaken a room
for the world.

They left the doors open.
It would not leave.
Someone brought seed.
Someone else
a shallow dish of water.

On Sunday
the congregation gathered beneath it.
During the first hymn
the sparrow began to sing.
Not beautifully.
This mattered.
Its voice was thin
and ordinary
and sometimes disappeared
beneath the organ.
Still,
people looked up.
Even the priest.
Especially the priest.

That afternoon
the sparrow found the open doors.
It flew once
around the nave,
passed above the empty pews,
and left.

The following morning
the priest stood at the altar
and looked toward the rafters.
He had spent thirty-seven years
telling people
that absence
was not proof
of anything.
For the first time,
he understood
why they kept looking up.