What Would Sparrows Pay?

Oh to fly above like a bird, have you ever wondered?  To look down, have a bird's eye view without vertigo setting in, without a fear of heights and able to perch upon the tallest spire.  How they get through winter, mild or not, is a mystery, for their metabolisms are so very high and food is scarce.  Were they able to stay before humans doled out seeds and suet, and if so, what did they live on?

Coming in by car, or walking out through the parking lot, I am usually spotted by sentries of the air, the scrappy little sparrows.  One or two will sit atop the chain link fence near where I park, and wait for the car to pull in; if I am walking out to the lot, there is a rocketing brown escort who then heralds me expectantly with beeps and chirps, hurry, where were you, come on already.

I carry a bag of seed inside my car to toss around wherever I go; subsequently, there is seed on the car floor, which in the case of my leaky Chevy one year, sprouted into a lawn in the back.  It was amazing, I would show my friends my indoor car lawn, and they would tiptoe away.  Chia pet car.

Now I have a lovely, older Scion XB that stays dry and keeps scattered seed from developing roots and leaves.  Yesterday afternoon, after I arrived home and was chucking a handful of millet onto the grass edge of the parking lot, I used my foot to push about some of the paper cup trash which lines the area.  I just don't understand people.  One year, I picked up three garbage bags full in an afternoon, mostly cups, food trays, wrappers, a couple of syringes (I know, I am), and bottles.  This year, I have gotten smaller portions neatened up, only to have them refilled with fast food trash before I could blink.

Looking at the discards, I noticed familiar print lying on the ground, a small piece about as big as a square inch.  It was a fragment of a dollar.  At first, I imagined that it was one of those sham dollars that get you to pick it up to read the advertisement on the back, but no.  It was the real thing, in an odd presentation; well, now it's art and was pocketed to be used in some sort of societal statement later on.  Very handy, as it would give me the shivers to tear up a dollar.

Today, the car was parked a bit further down; as I tossed seed out to the peanut gallery, there was another bit of dollar, and what on earth?  Did someone tear up money and toss it into the air?  Maybe.  Or, more likely, did the sparrers find a dollar, and in Passer domesticus style, begin to pay in portion for the small amount of seed tossed out?  I certainly don't give them a whole dollar's worth, for if you are caught feeding the birds, you can eventually be evicted.  There be rats down here, yet in my opinion, it's the openly careless garbage corrals which build Ratticus City, not a handful of bird seed.

I like to imagine that payment is being doled out as the commodity is dispensed, and the sparrows, who have a harder time with pennies, are offering pieces of dollar in fair trade.  I now have two parts and sizewise, have six bits left to go.  If enough is able to be puzzled together, I can get a whole new dollar from the bank, but that would be unappreciative and possibly hurt feathered feelings.  I will keep it in a box, and when I die and my son has to clean out the apartment, it will be one of a myriad of treasures he will find.  I guess a ledger's note should be provided, a 'payments received' for birdseed.

Work is in a rougher part, but as I drove the city blocks this morning, it seemed that my eye was drawn to the green which flourished in yards, empty lots, or through cracked sidewalks.  It is still a fresh green, no leaves are browned or left ragged by insects or spores, everything is full, lush, pristine.  Grass by curbs or crooked trees, burdock in lots or dandelions taking hold in the minuscule amounts of dirt held in a fissure, they make it normal, they even out the broken, the hard corners, the lost.  As long as there is verdant growth, our hearts will be gladdened, and I believe that holds for animals as well, for they happily roll in grass just for the joy of it.

A cooler evening is coming, after an on and off rainy day; the catnip growing under the raised highway is lush, and I have gathered a bagful already.  There has been so much rain, that the wild mushrooms which grow under the nearby pines lining the roadway have sprung, Agaricus rodmanii.  I will pick them as I do the years they appear but do not recommend it for anyone else, you must be trained carefully to know what you are doing.  They are known as a city mushroom, for they favor compacted soil around bus stops or pathways; this gives them a compact sturdiness and more of a layer of dirt than other mushrooms. Another patch grows over by Buffalo General Hospital, and one that I suspect is Agaricus campestris grows in fairy rings at the museum.  I think I have a reputation with the neighbors.

Feed someone, feed something, it is a satisfying thing to do, a way of sharing, a way of saying that you would like that being to progress or be successful, which is a continuation of creation, that proliferation of evolving growth.  Then you will have done a great thing.  Sleep comes easily to a giving heart, which I know you have; it shows in your actions, your song that has no lyrics.

Let night slip over your window sill, sleep in dream-laden darkness; time will come, everything will be fine.  Let night.