Recall

Right before dawn, the dog
cried in its dream, so the child
put her hand on its side
and said its name. She then fell
back asleep into a loose box
of her own dreams, lined
with running fast, faster than ever
and anyone. Dust rose to turn
her legs white as bone, and still
she ran, the rest far behind.
Come on, she yelled. She ran
into the forest over roots
until she found herself in a place
she didn’t know. A winter sparrow
called, already there that fall,
saying what some took
as a man’s name, something
she could never hear. As much
as she tried, it didn’t sound
like any words at all.
Days when she walked
with her mother and the dog,
her mother pointed them out:
white-throated sparrows, a bit
of gold by their eye, come
all the way from another country.
Her mother told her of the sparrows
she knew in winter as a child,
white-crowned, without a song
she could recall. Listen, she said,
and they followed the sound
with their eyes to the sparrow
breaking apart the weeds
to what it needed with its mouth.