The Bird Man of Huntington Beach

He was the closest thing to a Biblical prophet

I had ever seen. A million pigeons followed him

like a windfall of angel feather, seraphim,

cherubim, protecting Elijah

from the real world.

His skin was dark and wrinkled

from a million days under the summer sun

always barefoot, faded Bermuda shorts

his only protection from the wind and rain.

I never heard him speak, but he always waved “hello”

to me and my mom.

Like the proverbial robin on the first day of Spring

the Bird Man heralded the end of a season

of winter storms that sent the finch-sparrows flocking

for shelter in beams, 

in trees, old houses.

Every morning, long before the sun came up

I’d see him walking along the beach

with his host of pigeons, our own patron prophetÖ

the Bird Man of Huntington Beach.