The Tao of Sparrow

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Imagine a president whose philosophy might be summed up in six words: Pay attention. Do no harm. Rejoice.

Sparrow now lives in a double-wide trailer near Woodstock, New York (just down the road from dozens of my cousins), with Violet (also known as Ellen), their daughter Sylvia, a cat named Gum, and a rabbit, Bananacake. If you're passing through Phoenicia, look for Bananacake's hutch or Sparrow's special underwear drying on a line. (Sparrow wears yogic loincloths called lungota, which in his experience have birth control value, among other things.)

The man once described as the "bemused and bearded Rumi of the New Age poetry scene" also enjoys preparing and eating simple foods (no onions or garlic, please), copes with carpal tunnel syndrome and tennis elbow (relying on voice recognition software), ponders the mysteries of life, and celebrates the beauty of "bathifying."

"The bathtub is my church," Sparrow affirms. Visualize him buoyed in a bath, almond soap at hand, growing wrinkly, slightly older, and a bit cleaner, perhaps composing a poem. Picture steam rising from the tub, perhaps a cat crying outside a closed door, and someone writing as if each word were his first -- or his very last.

That's my brother Sparrow.

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