This poem "Mother Sparrow" is a short poem in Jin Meiling's poetry collection "When I am lonely, others don't know". When I read this little poem, it instantly took me back to that ignorant teenager, and I experienced something personally.
It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was playing with some friends in the yard behind my father's unit. Two osmanthus trees and a plane tree planted in the yard many years ago have flourished. Suddenly, a small sparrow came into our sight. Little sparrows are not full of feathers, struggling to fly far and fall to the ground. We caught the little sparrow easily.
Little sparrows kept chirping in the cage. At this time, a sparrow flew around anxiously, jumping up and down on the dry wood piled up on the eaves, between branches and leaves, and in the corner, always clinging to the cage where the sparrow was kept, and refusing to leave for a long time.
A little friend ran to the cage and put his hand into it. One end of the rope is tied to the sparrow's calf and the other end is tied to the cage. Then he opened the door with a piece of wood at the door of the cage. I saw him pulling a long cotton thread, one end of which was tied to the small wood supporting the cage door, and the other end was pulled in his hand. There is a rope tied to the sparrow's leg, which prevents it from coming out of the cage. It cried in horror, just like a doll without a mother calling for her mother. We squatted on the ground at a distance, waiting quietly, waiting for the sparrow mother to walk to the little sparrow in the cage regardless.
Anxious mother sparrow finally landed near the cage, groping ... Then she entered the cage through the gap on the edge of the wood. I saw the partner squatting next to me gently pulling the small wooden strip, and the small door blocked the exit of the cage. Poor mother sparrow was locked in a cage with the little sparrow.
We surrounded the birdcage, and our childish faces were filled with the joy of victory. Our friends all say that this mother sparrow is so stupid that she got into the trap herself. At this time, my mother came to the kitchen near the yard to prepare dinner. Just seeing this scene, she asked us to open the cage quickly and let two sparrows go. I said I would stay and raise them, and I would catch worms and feed them, but my mother said, "Nature is the habitat of birds. Even if you catch worms and feed them, they will lose their lives because of extreme sadness. " After listening to my mother's words, my friends and I had to carry the cage to a forest behind the yard, untie the rope tied to the sparrow's leg, and put the sparrow mother and sparrow back into the lush embrace of nature.
Today, many years later, the poem Mother Sparrow suddenly reminded me of my childhood. I am glad that I listened to my mother's words and let mother sparrow and little sparrow return to nature. Nevertheless, in my heart, there has been a deep remorse, blaming my ignorance as a child and hurting the great maternal love of mother sparrow.
Human beings regard maternal love as the most selfless love in the world, and it is also the basis for the continuation of human life. In fact, animals are the same, treating their children as well as humans. Writing here, I remembered the anxiety, irritability and uneasiness of the sparrow mother at that time, and the situation that she resolutely put the sparrow into the cage. I can't help but be awed and shocked, and it's hard to calm down for a long time.
(Written on February 27th, 2020)