Where Is The House Sparrow? Poem by Gita Ashok

Where is the House Sparrow
that I used to see ten years ago?
Chirping, flitting and looking
for seeds and grain below.

Today the voice of this small brown bird –
a double chirp call note – is sadly not heard.
Have we selfishly rendered it homeless
in the midst of all our concrete jungle mess?

Trees are being thoughtlessly axed
to build highways and flyovers fast.
In an attempt to make our lives more comfortable,
are we not making the ecosystem less stable?

Fancy malls and amusement parks;
skyscrapers and glass buildings -
certainly add glamour to the cityscape.
But at the cost of making the sparrow escape.

Or is it too much vehicular traffic…
with increasing levels of
air and noise pollution
that is driving this poor bird to extinction?

Our children have been blessed
to see this little bird in flesh and blood.
I sincerely hope that their children will be this lucky
and they too get to see this little bird in reality.

Let us wake up to the realization
that if we don’t mend our ways soon,
then one fine day the sparrow
will too go the way of the dodo.

26/7/2010
12 noon

Note:
The scientific name of the House Sparrow is Passer domesticus. It is a member of the family Passeridae. It is a brownish-grey small bird found close to the habitats of human beings. It makes a characteristic short and practically non-stop double chirp call. It feeds on seeds and grain.
The dodo - a flightless bird and an inhabitant of Mauritius - an island on the Indian Ocean has been extinct since the middle of the 17th century.