17 January 2008

Pájaro / Ájaro

On a Sunday morning a few months ago I set out on one of my usual solo-missions. On the corner above the laundromat, I passed the birds, calmly perching and chirping (that is what they do, right?) along the clothes line that make up the electrical decor of 25th Street.

I was moved to look up the instant in which a set of powerful hands from above grabbed the cloud off the wires and shook it free of birds. The sound of a hundred or so wings dispersing at once without song is unlike any you could make with just the air as instrument...

Legend has it this was my first word.