Inexplicably, two pairs of Canada geese choose to nest on the Pleasant Street bridge. Topping short ornamental towers, gargoyle like, they imprecate passersby, lift slender tongues like stamens of black lilies, like blades concealed in the wrong end of an assassin's cane. I brave road rather than sidewalk, cars over proximity to each hard-eyed goose. From depths of smogged water, a great fish rises, long as my arm. At leisure, he samples air near the surface, lingers almost in reach. Fins ripple, large as my palm, furl like fabric in a gentle breeze. He basks in his world's liquid wind. We see walls, the expert said, they see canyons. We see an industrialized river, they see home. Every morning on my way to work, barn swallows snip air, sheer clean curves and precise angles, work clean as a bright pair of scissors in and out and under the bridge. Their bodies are effortless, an ebullience, iridescent and orange.
Each photo has its particular beauty: the vivid and vivifying blue of the morning-glories (and the white wood behind, blackened with time and with the dark nail-heads); I'm guessing Lake Michigan in the second photograph?; and the beautiful apartment, which looks like a place of welcome and repose, of activity and refreshment.
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