Todd Edward Anderson

This week’s analysis concerns a piece from my Collected Poems in which a scene of Springtime gives rise to reflections on parting.

Sparrow
I know her by her soft wings
When she visits in springtime.
Now gone among the lilacs at lakeside,
My girl is gone from me.
On the ridge a hedgerow hides a nest.
Soft matins offered there
When I pass early in the morn
Offered no more. 
In mind’s eye,
I see far off her low arc curl and cape.
Flit and flit from branch to fledgling branch
Dear one.
You are not lost,
Though all your yearnings yet remain.
Where can we dwell
If not in the heart of others?

Since the poem lacks a formal metrical structure and rhyme scheme, the lion’s share of the work is performed by syntax and alliteration.  There are eight sentences in total; let’s unpack each.

I know her by her soft wings
When she visits in springtime.

“When” is a relative pronoun that generates a temporal hypotactic clause.  You do not need a technical description to feel this grammatical reality as you read, but it helps us articulate the poetic effect of the sentence.  The first clause, “I know her by her soft wings”, since it arrives first in our minds, is experienced as a complete scene.   Because it is in the present tense, we imagine the speaker’s knowledge of the “soft-winged” thing to be an on-going, existential one. We assume he sees this bird often, perhaps even on a daily-basis.  “When”, in line two, arrests this blissful statement and rearranges it in light of another reality: time.  It’s not merely that the speaker “knows” the sparrow when he sees it.  Now his sight of the creature is constrained by discrete moments and seasons.  The “when” binds the sentence – forcing a relationship between two clauses that might have stood on their own: “I know her by her soft wings.  She visits in springtime”.  This forced relationship between clauses is hypotaxis (hypo – “over” or “governed by” and taxis – “arrange” or “order”) and like other tools in a writer’s toolkit (metaphor, simile, rhyme, meter), establishes a pattern to be managed and accounted for.

Now gone among the lilacs at lakeside,
My girl is gone from me.

This portion introduces two interpretive steps withheld by the first sentence.  “Now gone” moves us from an ambivalent or hopeful reading of the first lines, in which the speaker was poised to tell us all about the wonderful visitation of his favourite bird just returned at the cusp of Spring.  The reader associates this departure with the bird hinted at in the title and line one, but the second half of the second sentence forces another interpretive step.  All this time, the bird was a metaphor for a girl, which causes the reader to reevaluate their reception of earlier lines, not by discarding the image of the bird, but by learning to see double – to carry forward bird and girl together.  With this new pattern in place, phrases like lilacs at lakeside, which stand out due to the alliteration, are a fresh opportunity to imagine meaning in either direction.  On the one hand, it is easy to envision a sparrow resting on lilac branches with their beautiful violet blossoms.  On the other, “lilacs at lakeside“ becomes a symbol for affection between the speaker and the girl – perhaps a nostalgic scene of profession (if a romantic interpretation is in view) or familial wonder (if we imagine a mother or father watching their little girl pick flowers by the shore).

On the ridge a hedgerow hides a nest.

This sentence releases the emotional pressure of the previous two by steering our attention away from reflections on loss and away from bird and girl to an adjacent interest.  Alliteration helps to loosen the heavy grip of nostalgia; “ridge a hedgerow hides” offers a playful auditory interlude – it is fun to say aloud (like a minor tongue-twister) and delivers a new subject not entirely detached from the lake or the lilacs, since it is nestled within them, but like all good nests, becomes a momentary reprieve from the danger of longing.  Notice the interlocking pattern of sounds: r – dg – h – dg – r – h – d.

Soft matins offered there
When I pass early in the morn
Offered no more.

The nostalgic eye returns to devour this new object by repeating the temporal hypotaxis above, including the brief trick of a hopeful opening clause (“I know her by her soft wings”).  Here we get, “soft matins offered there”, connecting the innocence of a hopeful morning song to a nest tucked away in the brush.  The “when” in the second line both constrains and leaves unfulfilled the pressure of “offered there” because it is an incomplete thought, forcing the reader to incorporate “offered no more”, which sours the brief sweetness of the speaker’s regular habit.  In other words, the hypotaxis forces the reader to experience the same sourness at the level of grammar, since we don’t want to move beyond the idyllic morning music of birds roused to rejoicing by spring sunrise.

In mind’s eye,
I see far off her low arc curl and cape.

This sourness is extended by abstraction.  The temporal hypotaxis deployed above, which allowed the speaker to relive the moment of the sparrow’s return and sweet morning walks hearing its song from a hidden nest, gives way to memory alone – removed from tangible encounters to a remote, intellectual apprehension.  Hence the prepositional phrase that governs a new kind of inner sight and presses home the distance between speaker and bird.  Again, alliteration steps in to bear the reader: f – r – f – l – r – c – c – r – l – c.

Flit and flit from branch to fledgling branch
Dear one.

Finally, the speaker addresses the bird directly in the form of a command.  The oldest forms of the verb “to “flit” meant, “to convey or carry”; this developed into the meanings “to flow, run,” and finally into our modern idea “to go swiftly, lightly or to dart.”  All three etymological meanings are in view in the speaker’s imperative.  He is saying to the bird or girl: “carry forward my love – bring it with you on your way”; “flow, float along, run untouched by sorrow and free from cares of this world”; “like a butterfly or the sparrow, embrace with joy and agility life’s opportunities, ready to pivot and turn.”  The bird and girl are united in the substantive adjective “dear one”. 

You are not lost,
Though all your yearnings yet remain.

Here hypotaxis does opposite work to the temporal versions above.  Instead of constraining our hope, the concession “though” reinforces it.  “You are not lost” is proclaimed despite the presence of yearnings, which would be received in a fundamentally different spirit if it were structured, “You are not lost, but all your yearnings yet remain”.  The yearnings are made subordinate – they are significant and impactful, but cannot overcome the reality of the girl’s identity and belonging.  Charting a new course, beginning a fresh adventure, carries with it fears of the unknown, and especially the fear that a fledgling belongs neither to the nest it has left, nor to some new home it is searching out.  “Although you may feel lost”, advises the speaker to this bird or girl, “this is part of the process by which you discover you are not lost”.

Where can we dwell
If not in the heart of others?

The final turn in the poem, a rhetorical question governed by another hypotactic sentence, sharpens the theme of nostalgia to a point before driving it home.  The condition “if” recapitulates the search for home (“where can we dwell”) by pointing out that what we are searching for (the bird on its fledgling journey and the speaker in his reminiscences) is not merely the presence of the beloved, which would render belonging and rest, but a new conception of home.  To be at home is to be in the heart and mind of the other – for others to carry us in their hearts, to think of us, imagine our retorts and remonstrances.  This transcends the pangs of physical distance.  Moreover, we may dwell in the heart of many simultaneously.  The poem concludes by reminding us that this spiritual dwelling is in fact the only true one – that we derive pleasure from our physical interactions and long for them precisely because we are already at home in the heart of others.

This piece was inspired by my eldest daughter’s departure for school in the Fall of 2025, but on re-reading it this week, I was struck by poetry’s readiness to be adapted to new circumstances. We are currently enjoying the presence of this sparrow, back from her adventures for a time, cognizant that she will depart once more, but confident that she is no less home.

Todd Anderson (Stuff of the Rind, Sand and Sail, The Reluctant Prophet) writes the newsletter Mirth to share a behind-the-scenes look at his writing process as well as to offer readers the first fruits of his poetry and reflections. He grew up in the forests of small-town Ontario, contending against nature in all its beauty and harshness.  His training as a literary scholar of Latin and English literature inflects his love of poignant turns of phrase, but it is the influence of his family and their myriad adventures together that infuses his story-telling and poetry with its substance and power.  Todd lives and writes in Ottawa with his wife and six children. If you are interested in supporting Todd’s work, please follow the links below to donate or buy his books.