Looking After Angels

Clouds made of birds drift over the rooftops of the neighborhood. Some of the last pigeon keepers in New York City live here, in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Throughout the day their birds fly over the block, drawing unnameable shapes across the sky. Patterns of soul and patterns of survival. Some of the birds are the color of ash, others are the color of bright snow and apricots. Some of the birds look like longings. All of the birds are more colorful than they appear. When the birds fly it’s like watching a heartbeat, or ocean waves, and the shape of each flight pattern is different than the one that comes before and after.

Sometimes I photograph the birds from the corner of my street. Other times I photograph them from my kitchen window, but mostly I don’t photograph them at all. I just sit by the window, and I watch them fly. I imagine that somehow they will always be flying, because these birds don't require the holiness of doves. I imagine someone will always be raising them, and all the things like them. Somehow, somewhere, someone will be caring for every current and every acre and everything that drifts in the air and across the sea. Somehow everything will survive, and everything imaginable will someday exist.