Passing grey feathers flattened in the road, I thought I would re-post the following, in honor:
Dance Upon a Chimney Pot
Sitting in the coffee shop window this morning, thinking and planning and worrying, and drawing on a napkin, I looked out and saw against sky two pigeons silhouetted on a chimney pot. It is a bright, frozen day, with only a distant chill whisper of spring, but one pigeon was doing his bowing dance to the other, circling and bobbing, rounding his chest, no doubt cooing his burred song. He made me smile, and watch, and forget my thoughts.
Soon, his lady flew away. The pigeon paused in his dance. I thought he would stop, or fly away, too. But after a moment of looking this way and that with his tiny head, he began his dance alone against the clear blue, turning in a pattern which, however instinctual, was a very song of delight, of joy in being, of love without care of return.
No cramping fear of the morrow, though one pecks a meager living on a sidewalk, no shadow of foiled desire, no shame in the perception of others, indeed in a small gray bird a pure call to cast one's very soul upon the waters.