I sip, and I wait. Again it comes, the many dark and white bodies moving in unison behind the webwork of telephone lines which are woven up, down and across the street. Their bodies move like musical notes being played upon those lines. Though they move quickly, the whispery sound and the graceful curves and streams of their path paint a smooth, liquid visual song. Sultry. The songs are as varied as their configurations, changing as they change their direction.

I sip. They return from another direction, turn and come back, carving sensuous forms in the morning sky, defining spaces with their trailing arcs of flight. The black, the grey and the white shifting in space. Forty four wings working together to create beautiful morning music for any who care to watch. Listen.

A disembodied computerized male voice announces over the loudspeaker that the next train is due in two minutes.

The lunch crowd is here. Men and women in their business attire, trying to free themselves from the confines of their cubicle walls, the stale, processed office building air, and the artificial lights; trying to connect - however briefly - with the other elements of life; the sun, the scent of the bay, the sound of the school children playing their noisy and frenetic games, the names of which most of the observers have long ago forgotten.

The larger of the two pigeons ceases his attack and heads off, his own lunch hour having ended, perhaps. I look at the form of the smaller pigeon and feel my heart sink. I am quite sure she is dead, yet this alone is not what saddens me. Rather, it is the site of yet another pigeon, a long time friend of the deceased, most likely. She is fretting and nervous and frantic. She is walking and hopping around the motionless form, lightly touching her with her beak. Trying, it seems, to awaken her. The pigeon friend becomes even more frantic, hopping quickly around the form, cooing softly, fruitlessly trying to awaken her friend.

After many long minutes, the pigeon friend begins to walk away, returns and touches the form again, then retreats, then returns. FInally, she lifts off and sets a low course over to the rest of her crowd.

I continue to study the form. I wonder about the notion that one never, in fact, sees baby pigeons, which causes me to wonder where they come from. Which also causes me to wonder where they go. I return to my own airless office to expend my energies for the afternoon.