I wrote this almost a year ago. It came to me one morning when I couldn’t sleep because Philadelphia can be so freaking hot in the summer, especially on days when you have the chance of sleeping in. These are my feelings expressed in a poem-like setting. Currently, no title because nothing I’ve thought of seems to fit. Feel free to share suggestions.
Let me tell you about pigeons
Why they are so freaking awesome.
Pigeons are survivors.
I have always loved pigeons.
Watching Masters of evolution and adaptation
The ones that survived when the country turned
From trees, grasses, prickly bushes
Into skyscrapers and concrete.
More than surviving, flourishing
Growing and multiplying
Finding new ways to live
No matter the cost.
When people chase them,
Turn them into playthings for children,
They always return to life before
Humans a temporary, if dangerous, distraction from life.
As I grew older and became a social worker
I began to see more and more parallels
Between the birds I love
And the clients I serve.
Winged rats, pest, disease infected vermin
People hurl insults and genuine disgust at the birds
Who learned to live when we changed
The surface of the earth.
They crap on my car!
Someone exclaims, never noticing that
He parked his car under the tree
That is their home.
Does that not remind you of what some say of the homeless in our midst?
Eye sores, detracting from tourism and property values.
No respect or awe for people who live in conditions
That would terrify us.
Building lives and finding love on the sides of our mainstream.
In some ways the pigeons
Do not seem to mind us
Do not recognize
Our power and their oppression
Scattering when we walk by is just life.
We have now begun to call that
Complex Trauma.
Complex Trauma
Like Black men living in a society
Where politicians and media have made
Black synonymous with criminal.
Like my LGBTQ friends
Who know not to walk down the street
Holding hands with the person they love
Because sexual orientation is not protected
By the Civil Rights Act.
Have you looked at a flock of pigeons?
More than you might expect are missing a foot.
How did they lose it?
Does it pain them to walk on the stump
As they go about their daily lives
Finding food without seeming concern?
I would not be surprised if you have not noticed.
We train our eye to avoid to the sight of
Physical difference.
The injured veteran, the ex-employee with a work-time injury,
A woman burned by a violent partner.
All of them are relegated to invisibility
By the part of us that warns,
Stranger, Other.
The only time we notice them,
Like pigeons,
Is when they get in our way.
The leeches asking for public money.
Please, we want help with food, housing,
Education for our children.
Maybe even some dignity.
From what I observe,
Pigeons don’t really help either.
But at least they do not one seem
To hate other pigeons.
Unlike our society where
Hate is profitable for the economy.
These parallels are probably not
What called my attention
To these feathered underdogs.
No, it was likely their shiny multicolored feathers.
So beautiful pigeons.
Like other children
Not realizing that this beauty
Was the wrong kind of beauty.
Like when Mexican immigrants move into rundown
Abandoned communities.
Repair the homes
Paint them bright and vibrant colors.
Then the homeowners association gets mad.
Because white blight is better
Than ethnic bright, life.
I would miss the pigeons if they left.
Worst, who would take the place
Of the bird who fills our need
For something to hate?
For removing the thing
We call the problem
Will not address our indoctrinated need
To hate another in order to prove
We are in the inner circle.
Social Justice Ninja 