In the old days, when the world was but young and the creatures were but new upon it, a sparrow approached its young mother, the Earth below, with a request.

“Mother,” it said most politely, “I have a boon to ask of thee.”

“Speak, then, little flutterer,” said the Earth. In those days, young and so very proud of her creations, she whispered lovingly to all of them in the dewey mornings and misty evenings. The stony silence she bears now is, after all, borne of the long hurt that only a mother can know, and not of hatred.

“I would like to know why it is that I must die,” the sparrow said.

“Many have asked me this before, and it has ever been a prelude to asking eternal life of me,” answered the Earth.

“I would be lying, dear Mother, if I said it were not so,” said the sparrow. “But Father ever gives off warmth and light, seemingly asking nothing in return, while thine gifts are only good for a time, until we inevitably return them to thee.”

“And yet has your Father in the sky ever held thee, ever whispered to thee, ever provided hollows in which to hide and sticks with which to build?” asked the Earth. “I think not. His gifts are fine and without recompense, but they are the gifts of an absent parent, sent instead of love rather than with love, by one who is too busy flitting and dancing for real responsibility.”

“But I also flit and dance after a fashion, dear Mother,” said the sparrow. “Surely thou can part with what it would take to show me the same regard that Father does.”

This greatly saddened the Earth. “I will make you a bargain then, sparrow. I will hold myself apart from thee and take thee not into my bosom in death. We shall see, then how much regard I show for three.”

The sparrow eagerly agreed, and that very night he sprang from the jaws of one who would otherwise have slain him. But soon he came to see he folly of his request: in holding herself apart from him, the Earth offered neither shelter nor succor. Perches and nests failed to warm, food failed to satisfy, water failed to slake thirst.

Worse, the sparrow came to see how its mate, its chicks, and all of its flock in time came to rest in the embrace of their loving mother. The sparrow was soon cut off from family and flock, regarded as a curious old outsider even by his own descendants.

After the passage of much time, the sparrow returned to his mother. “O mother, I beg of thee, take back this gift which has been my curse,” he wept. “I see now what you meant all those many years ago.”

“Do you now, little flutterer?” The Earth was much saddened in those later days, and already beginning to withdraw herself from her beloved children into solitude. “What would you ask of me now? What impossible and selfish demands?”

“I ask only to return that which I once borrowed from thee and, in my impudence, sought to keep,” said the sparrow. “I can hear the keening call of the Great Flock, and wish only to be reunited with them.”

“You see now what your pride has wrought?” said the Earth.

“I do.”

“Then embrace me, O flutterer.”

That was the last time a sparrow ever spoke to the Earth, our mother, and the last request she granted unto us. And yet we remain grateful all the same, for without her daily gifts, we would perish. And without returning to her in time, we would not have repaid all that we owe.

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