Tenement Birds

As I wrote in the prior post, it was one of those very calm and quiet early summer mornings.  Everything living was tentatively waiting for the hot sun to break over the horizon and wondering how to begin another day trying to exist and make some progress in the steam bath that is here to stay for many weeks more.  I dipped the canoe paddle into the silver surface and gently headed beneath the highway bridge toward the open marsh hoping to enjoy the early morning 'cool' as long as I could.  I saw the silhouettes of swallows against the gray blue sky on the other side.  They were already diving and swooping for an early breakfast.  As I pulled into the dark shade beneath the bridge and beneath the regular and intermittent rattle of the cars on the highway above, I looked up and saw these twins sitting regally.  I wondered what solemn conversation I had interrupted.  It was a Paris Hilton with her BFF moment to be sure and their look made me feel I should have dressed better and should not be eavesdropping (although technically I was bridge-dropping).   Actually, regarding dropping...no I won't go there.

Such elegant seriousness.  They did not have that look of the starving young leaning forward with over sized gapping mouths. They did not have that look of startled young calling in shrill notes for mom and dad to return and save them from this giant below.  Instead they had the look of royal resignation about how boring life can be when you are waiting to be waited on.  They knew that eventually the mosquito caviar would be served.  Living in a castle surrounded by the noise of 'civilization' and resigned to the rumble of man's machines overhead until their graduation would release them from such irritation was their accepted fate.

Patient and regal, they keep their royal prince and princess style by staying so amazingly clean while living in a nest of mud.