Sparrows Do Not Come Back Poem by BASAB CHAUDHURI

For a long time
I haven't seen a sparrow.
I do not see them.

I miss their innocent restlessness,
their inquisitive eyes,
their flight together
up in the sky —
their own little sky
where they fly
and then come back.

They do not come back.
They did not come back.

Do they not fly anymore?
Are they history now?

Sparrows were with us;
they filled our hearts with joy.

What did we do to them
that they do not come back?

Sparrows -
like arrows,
lost in the distance,
beyond my imagining.