Wednesdays in the park with Karen

Mockingbirds are notoriously shy...or at least the ones in my neighborhood, preferring high perches where they astound with their mimicry. Yesterday though I was lucky to keep quiet company with one in the back yard...on the ground.

I was cooling down on a chaise after some industrious traipsing around and heavy lifting. I'd spotted her as I schlepped back and forth hauling soil, surprised that she hadn't spooked and flown away. Maybe she was a younger bird with fewer humans-to-be-avoided hang-ups. Anyway, I stayed as still as possible as she hopped ever closer...and closer...doing what I now know is "wing-flashing" either to flush out insects or to warn me off. Regardless, she bounced even closer (now minus wing-flash) onto a planter, and ultimately onto the back of a chair. She stopped there -- no more than five feet away and the most pleasurable social distancing I've experienced in months. What a treat, a close-up side view and chance to check her out. She didn't stay long...puffed out her breast feathers then slowly...slowly...and with the utmost grace and gentility released a most tidy dropping onto the chair. Then picked herself up and flew back to the ground for more foraging.

While I'd created a place to rest, I hadn't intended it as a rest stop!I couldn't help wondering if she was sending me a sly message.

Nonetheless, it pleased me to continue watching birds of many stripes enjoying and making use of the space...generously sharing it with me. I tend not to be still out there, always planting, pruning, pulling something. Instead I was rewarded when I simply stopped, paid attention, and basically stayed within bounds in what is inherently the domain of my feathered and furry coinhabitants. (Note: I'm referring to wildlife.)

Neither exotic or rare, a modestly gray bird managed to teach this 2-legged know-it-all a thing or two: stop running, play nicely with others, and share the playground. If not, you know what will happen. Yep, **** happens.

toward a (more) perfect union

Faded black-and-white photos.

Ten-year-old white girl, proud in your petticoat-ed daisy print dress, white socks and wilting ponytail,

Fountain behind you...visible through the towering black fence.

The people’s house.

Feet tucked tidily, hands light in your lap, you sit together on the low wall.

Grandmom, as she called herself, in her own neat dress and comfortable shoes.

Lady’s handbag filled with everything needed just in case.

Smiles all around in the sweltering sun.

Later you're alone in the distance, Lincoln looming large.

His is a long shadow. You’ve yet to cast your own.

Hard not to stand tall in the presence of greatness however flawed.

Over sixty years since, I see promise, hope and the future in your shining face.

No gas...crowd fleeing...rubber bullets...arms and armor advancing.

No menacing phalanx spanning the stone edifice for a truly monumental man.

No steel barricade-turned-memorial-wall, art transforming the facade.

I don’t see the rainbow forming. Yet.

Ten-year-old white girl, you don’t know and can’t see what should be and what shouldn’t. Yet.

+++

Black citizens were boycotting in Montgomery, Alabama that sultry August day in 1956 as I was sitting in front of the people’s house and visiting the memorial to a revered leader. A few months later an all-white Supreme Court of the United States upheld that segregated buses in Alabama were unconstitutional. That separate but equal would not stand.