Every Sunday when Diane is at the Cathedral either playing piano or singing in the choir, I go to Wat Chia Mongkhon. I sit under a sala (a building without walls with tables and chairs set up inside) and watch the Ping River drift by. I spend most of my time writing in my notebook and having a coffee. Since this is a wat, Buddhists regularly feed the fish of the river to earn merit or sometimes purchase birds in cages to set free for the same reason. Normally they just open the cage door and away the bird flies. But this one particular bird just sat there in the cage and then was just dumped out on the dock. The bird seemed dazed and wasn’t doing well, maybe even injured. They carried the poor bird to the end of the dock and hoped for the best. I was thinking the worst and was worried. After a half hour or so people seemed to lose interest, but I was riveted. Some kids started playing on the dock unaware of the bird just sitting there. I was sure it was going to get stepped on and I’d have bad bird dreams for years to come. The bird walked to the edge of the dock, and it looked like he was contemplating jumping in the water. Can you imagine? I was about to witness a bird suicide. All I could do was just watch. My stomach tightened from the trepidation. My heart was in my throat. Then suddenly he just flew away. I was SOOOO relieved. I ended up writing about it in lyric form and the song ‘Bird’ ended up as the title cut on the album. I sent this story to Athina Efthymiopoulou, an artist in Greece I hired to do the artwork, and she completely understood the story and conveyed it beautifully. I just love the album cover.

For context, these photos were shot the following week. The bird pictured is a lot larger than the one in the story. It was more of a sparrow.