Pigeons
'Men still live who, in their youth, remember pigeons; trees still live who, in their youth, were shaken by a living wind. But a few decades hence only the oldest oaks will remember, and at long last only the hills will know.' —Aldo Leopold, On a Monument to the Pigeon, 1947
A collared bird is drinking; it bows to the river, water wets its crop. Dreaming has always moved in the skin of the river the voiceless river, all throat. We granted a river the same rights as human - empathy, care, compassion. Words meet water and run with muddy meaning, the pigeon, light on its shoulders, is a clean answer to the body - space emerges around its flight. We read narratives of loss, remember feathered napes dove-grey, peach and gold, trees shaken by a living wind the body of each bird, very private. Wings are laced with sentiment empathy is sweet to bear, liquid running over feathers small bodies of water dying away into water - how to fade from the wheeling optics would you like to see everything all at once?