As I sat at a table behind the empty Sunday-morning café, a bird flew and perched up on a street light. It is fascinating how each type of bird, and each bird itself, can have such individual personality. A beautiful light gray mockingbird, he was slender, but cocky, prince of his little realm, throwing his head back to sing, and then looking down at his kingdom—and then he flew away.

I looked around, and there was not a another bird in sight

I am alone, I thought, not another living being.

But the maples down by the creek, and the other trees, they are living beings…so was the roll of grass between us, and the Virginia creeper climbing up the trees, and the scrub and weeds and bushes on the bank behind the trees.

And the cars buzzing past beyond—in each of them a living being: every one, all of them with their own destination, their own fears, their own joys, their own desires, their own cares, their own jokes.

The crazy little mockingbird comes back and looks at his little realm.