Pigeons, Love, and Remembering How to Fly

On remembering

“But what if I forget what it feels like?” asked bird.

“But what if you don’t?” replied fox.

Mobile: Spatial Defrag, a dreamy color study of a design commissioned by the Milwaukee Art Museum store for the museum’s Kandinsky exhibition.

Thoughts while making
Her name was Charles.

She sat on a gray bench near my Oakland flat.

She wore green sneakers, each with three white stripes.

And she talked to pigeons.

“I’ve talked to other birds,” she explained, “but pigeons listen.”

Peering out my window, I would often see Charles looking up.

I assumed she was looking for birds.

“I’m remembering,” she told me later, “how it feels.”

And sensing my question…

“I’m remembering how it feels to laugh.”

“And dream,” cooed a nearby pigeon.

“And feel loved,” grunted another.

“And hope,” chirped one more.

“When I look up, Mark,” a smile coming to her lips, “I’m remembering how it feels to fly. Maybe you could do the same?”

I never saw Charles again after that day.

But hanging high in the branches of a gnarled old redwood, just steps from that gray bench, I spotted a pair of green sneakers with three white stripes.

Yes, as I was looking up and remembering.

What can you remember today?