They are sitting in front of my window, courting, day after day. Sometimes they come as a small flock, sometimes just the two of them, she more cautious, reserved, but eventually joining him at the bird bath. We used to put seeds out, but that attracted too many squirrels onto the balcony.

These birds have been struggling, over-hunted, numbers slowly picking up for a while, now declining again. They eat berries, love to hang out in the Hawthorne and munch, sitting upright. I wave to them, they blink at me, unperturbed. Leaving as suddenly as they appeared.

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Two Pigeons

BY MARY JO SALTER

They’ve perched for hours
on that window-ledge, scarcely   
moving. Beak to beak,

a matched set, they differ   
almost imperceptibly—
like salt and pepper shakers.

It’s an event when they tuck   
(simultaneously) their pinpoint   
heads into lavender vests

of fat. But reminiscent   
of clock hands blandly   
turning because they must

have turned—somehow, they’ve   
taken on the grave,   
small-eyed aspect of monks

hooded in conferences
so intimate nothing need
be said. If some are chuckling

in the park, earning
their bread, these are content   
to let the dark engulf them—

it’s all the human   
imagination can fathom,   
how single-mindedly

mindless two silhouettes   
stand in a window thick   
as milk glass. They appear

never to have fed on   
anything else when they stir   
all of a sudden to peck

savagely, for love
or hygiene, at the grimy   
feathers of the other;

but when they resume   
their places, the shift   
is one only a painter

or a barber (prodding a chin   
back into position)   
would be likely to notice.

Source: Henry Purcell in Japan (1984)

And all this to play today’s music, since Antonín Dvořák fits my mood these days…..