A man, wearing crew socks, basketball shorts, and a baseball cap, pushes a red rolling mechanics cart across six lanes of traffic, but he does not have a car.
The Man stands at a newspapers box, his leaf blower laid over the top. He is scanning the ads and his companion the Bird, easily three feet long from top to tail, magnificent and bold, sits placidly on his shoulder.
Today, there is a blue kerchief around their neck that conceals the collar, but not the iron chain, with links as large as my pinky, that ties them to the Man.
I wonder what the Bird thinks about the chain, about their leaf-blowing, newspaper-reading job in a concrete and asphalt jungle where the other feathered creatures hop through the muck and oil for meaningful crumbs and small satisfactions are gained.
But mostly, I wonder how the Bird feels toward the Man whose fingers attach the chain every morning and remove it every night.
Has the memory of what had been a raging fire of hate? or it is a settled, cold, hard stone that keeps them grounded.
A memento they carry with them always, and every shuffle of their feet, every bowing of their head, every curtailed stretch of a wing before flight is a protest and a plea that the Man who keeps them will see and finally acknowledge and end their suffering.
But it may be that it is neither of these things, and the Bird, content with the reality they are currently experiencing, thinks rarely if ever upon the jungles past and the life they might have.
Perhaps they even prefer their captivity, the routine, the comfort, the safety, the snacks, to the wild and unpredictable freedom of the forest.
I wonder if the Man believes this.
What did you see?
#mymorningwalk