"Our Father is in the evening," he thought. "These birds are flying across the forehead of the Father..."

"...Dear birds, dear seagulls, how I love you all.  Your slow wings stroke my heart as the hand of a gentle master strokes the full stomach of a sleeping dog, as the hand of Christ stroked the heads of little children. Dear birds," he thought, "fly to to Our Lady of Sweet Sorrows with my open heart." And then he said the loveliest words he knew: 'Ave Maria, gratia plena-'

- John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat

Nana Mouskouri, Ave Maria

Pilon was a lover of beauty and a mystic. He raised his face into the sky and his soul arose out of him into the sun's afterglow...

...That not too perfect Pilon, who plotted and fought, who drank and cursed, trudged slowly on; but a wistful and shining Pilon went up to the seagulls where they bathed on sensitive wings in the evening.  That Pilon was beautiful, and his thoughts were unstained with selfishness and lust.  And his thoughts are good to know...

- John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat