not the lady rushing to catch the bus,
flagging it down from a hundred meters away,
not the teenagers shoving one another off the bus, masked with laughing eyes,
not the old man seating himself gingerly on the orange bus stop seat
and not the lovers whispering to each other,
those two don't see anything else actually.
Meanwhile the bird flies to and fro, carrying twigs and dried leaves
sometimes from the bushes behind the bus stop
sometimes from the trees all the way across the road.
The sparrow busy building its nest in the crevices of the bus-stop
and us, building ours in each nook of our high rise flats,
we are not always aware of the other,
our petty squabbles
tender kisses
the hungry mouths we feed
the news we share of our days
spent outside this nest
to fortify it,
and tired caresses at night
To us, she is just another bird.
To her we are just another human being.
Each to its own and
yet
we are together, a community.
Behind the bus stop, karate classes continue on the badminton court between our flats.
Children stand, bow and take their positions,
some with iron in the eyes and steel in their limbs,
others all soft and plaint, their half-hearted kicks a gentle massage to any would-be offenders
The birds practise too,
this time mynahs,
squaking and squabbling over a piece of stale bread.
They glare at one another, pluck the bread from another's beak, fly to a quiet corner to take a bite,
only to have it plucked away again.
Children and birds
adding colour and music,
even as they learn self defence.
They are learning to stay safe,
though safe,
in this community.
add colour and music
to this, our community,
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