i wonder do birds know

birds have something to tell us.

i heard the birdman doug anderson died and i asked for a picture. the pictures were  newsprint, and quite small. i thought he might like to be represented by birds.

then i thought there's something nice about old newsprint pictures, even small and sent along the electric grapevine. 

i thought pictures are ghosts that we carry, ghosts that live as images in memory. 

i thought of certain birds i can remember from many years ago. how certain beings live indelibly as pictures, light traveling in to wake up memory.

i didn't know doug, but he was of the doug tribe, like a golden retriever is a golden retriever, and each utterly unique, as a bird is a bird. he was losing his memory in montgomery place the last years while i found the birders and did the bird walk he started. he may have had all the pictures without words for the memories. i can imagine him there above the birders glimpsing him watching over them, flying through the trees.