Birds Flying In The Sky Quotes

One thing: you have to walk, and create the way by your walking; you will not find a ready-made path. It is not so cheap, to reach to the ultimate realization of truth. You will have to create the path by walking yourself; the path is not ready-made, lying there and waiting for you. It is just like the sky: the birds fly, but they don't leave any footprints. You cannot follow them; there are no footprints left behind.

The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright -- And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. The moon was shining sulkily, Because she thought the sun Had got no business to be there After the day was done -- "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun!" The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead -- There were no birds to fly. In a Wonderland they lie Dreaming as the days go by, Dreaming as the summer die.

If you want to fly on the sky, you need to leave the earth. If you want to move forward, you need to let go the past that drags you down.

Sing swan, Spring swan then lets fly. Follow the pretty bird across the sky. Call swan, Fall swan, then lets rest. Tucked in the branches of your quiet nest.

sweet spring is your time is my time is our time for springtime is lovetime and viva sweet love (all the merry little birds are flying in the floating in the very spirits singing in are winging in the blossoming) lovers go and lovers come awandering awondering but any two are perfectly alone there's nobody else alive (such a sky and such a sun i never knew and neither did you and everybody never breathed quite so many kinds of yes) not a tree can count his leaves each herself by opening but shining who by thousands mean only one amazing thing (secretly adoring shyly tiny winging darting floating merry in the blossoming always joyful selves are singing) sweet spring is your time is my time is our time for springtime is lovetime and viva sweet love

Open skies painted above painted doorways and painted birds skimming across bricks trying to fly away. Little bird, what are you thinking? You come from a can.

A man of words and not of deeds Is like a garden full of weeds And when the weeds begin to grow It's like a garden full of snow And when the snow begins to fall It's like a bird upon the wall And when the bird away does fly It's like an eagle in the sky And when the sky begins to roar It's like a lion at the door And when the door begins to crack It's like a stick across your back And when your back begins to smart It's like a penknife in your heart And when your heart begins to bleed You're dead, and dead, and dead indeed.

Why do people so often keep on speaking without ever saying anything? Words so often disappear furtively, as if they had never existed. They don’t stir any strings in our minds or thrill our emotions. They leave no trace in our memory and vanish simply like birds in the airy void of the sky. ("Words flew away like birds" )

I'm as light as a cloud, as free as a bird. I'm part of the sky and I can fly.

Even though it’s locked in a cage, my heart is a bird that flutters at the sound of her voice, as if trying to fly to the point in the sky where yellow meets blue.

Who do you suppose decided that the birds are free? Even if they can fly the skies unless they have a destination and a branch upon which to perch and rest their wings they might even come to resent having those wings. True freedom... true freedom may be having somewhere to return to.

At the end of her life she was aware of heat but not pain. She had time to consider his eyes, eyes of that blue which is the color of the sky at first light of the morning. She had time to think of him on the Drop, riding Rusher flat out with his black hair flying back from his temples and his neckerchief rippling; to see him laughing with an ease and freedom he would never find again in the long life which stretched out for him beyond hers, and it was his laughter she took with her as she went out, fleeing the light and heat in to the silkly, consoling dark, calling to him over and over as she went, calling bird and bear and hare and fish.

No bird in a cage has ever come to know what the mountain winds feel like, by staring at the free flying birds, wishing that they would fall from the sky!

The sky itches and that’s why I tickled it with the feather of a bird. Do you realize it’s been 14 days since two weeks ago? Boy, time flies.

The ones I loved fly as birds in the open sky above me. Soaring, weaving, calling to me to join them. I want so badly to follow them, but the seawater saturates my wings, making it impossible to lift them. The ones I hated have taken to the water, horrible scaled things that tear my salty flesh with needle teeth. Biting again and again. Dragging me beneath the surface.

Ego Tripping I was born in the congo I walked to the fertile crescent and built the sphinx I designed a pyramid so tough that a star that only glows every one hundred years falls into the center giving divine perfect light I am bad I sat on the throne drinking nectar with allah I got hot and sent an ice age to europe to cool my thirst My oldest daughter is nefertiti the tears from my birth pains created the nile I am a beautiful woman I gazed on the forest and burned out the sahara desert with a packet of goat's meat and a change of clothes I crossed it in two hours I am a gazelle so swift so swift you can't catch me For a birthday present when he was three I gave my son hannibal an elephant He gave me rome for mother's day My strength flows ever on My son noah built new/ark and I stood proudly at the helm as we sailed on a soft summer day I turned myself into myself and was jesus men intone my loving name All praises All praises I am the one who would save I sowed diamonds in my back yard My bowels deliver uranium the filings from my fingernails are semi-precious jewels On a trip north I caught a cold and blew My nose giving oil to the arab world I am so hip even my errors are correct I sailed west to reach east and had to round off the earth as I went The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid across three continents I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal I cannot be comprehended except by my permission I mean...I...can fly like a bird in the sky...

Our wings serve as flippers that carry us across the ocean; not in the sky! Why, us penguins have so much fun time in the water, we don't even want to fly!

The sky’s dangers offer the eagle more opportunities than the nest’s comfort.

He's bent over the strings tuning his guitar with such passionate attention I almost feel I should look away but I can't. In fact I'm full on gawking wondering what it would be like to be cool and casual and fearless and passionate and so freaking alive just like he is- and for a split second I want to play with him. I want to disturb the birds. Later as he plays and plays as all the fog burns away I think he's right. That's exactly it- I am crazy sad and somewhere deep inside all I want is to fly.

Once upon a time, there was Candy and Dan. Things were very hot that year. All the wax was melting in the trees. He would climb balconies, climb everywhere, do anything for her, oh Danny boy. Thousands of birds, the tiniest birds, adorned her hair. Everything was gold. One night the bed caught fire. He was handsome and a very good criminal. We lived on sunlight and chocolate bars. It was the afternoon of extravagant delight. Danny the daredevil. Candy went missing. The days last rays of sunshine cruise like sharks. I want to try it your way this time. You came into my life really fast and I liked it. We squelched in the mud of our joy. I was wet-thighed with surrender. Then there was a gap in things and the whole earth tilted. This is the business. This, is what we're after. With you inside me comes the hatch of death. And perhaps I'll simply never sleep again. The monster in the pool. We are a proper family now with cats and chickens and runner beans. Everywhere I looked. And sometimes I hate you. Friday -- I didn't mean that, mother of the blueness. Angel of the storm. Remember me in my opaqueness. You pointed at the sky, that one called Sirius or dog star, but on here on earth. Fly away sun. Ha ha fucking ha you are so funny Dan. A vase of flowers by the bed. My bare blue knees at dawn. These ruffled sheets and you are gone and I am going to. I broke your head on the back of the bed but the baby he died in the morning. I gave him a name. His name was Thomas. Poor little god. His heart pounds like a voodoo drum.

THE TAME BIRD WAS IN A CAGE THE tame bird was in a cage, the free bird was in the forest. They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate. The free bird cries, "O my love, let us fly to the wood." The cage bird whispers, "Come hither, let us both live in the cage." Says the free bird, "Among bars, where is there room to spread one's wings?" "Alas," cries the caged bird, "I should not know where to sit perched in the sky." The free bird cries, "My darling, sing the songs of the woodlands." The cage bird sings, "Sit by my side, I'll teach you the speech of the learned." The forest bird cries, "No, ah no! songs can never be taught." The cage bird says, "Alas for me, I know not the songs of the woodlands." There love is intense with longing, but they never can fly wing to wing. Through the bars of the cage they look, and vain is their wish to know each other. They flutter their wings in yearning, and sing, "Come closer, my love!" The free bird cries, "It cannot be, I fear the closed doors of the cage." The cage bird whispers, "Alas, my wings are powerless and dead.

Whenever people see birds flying through the sky, it's said that they get the urge to go on a journey.

The Sunlight on the Garden The sunlight on the garden Hardens and grows cold, We cannot cage the minute Within its nets of gold, When all is told We cannot beg for pardon. Our freedom as free lances Advances towards its end; The earth compels, upon it Sonnets and birds descend; And soon, my friend, We shall have no time for dances. The sky was good for flying Defying the church bells And every evil iron Siren and what it tells: The earth compels, We are dying, Egypt, dying And not expecting pardon, Hardened in heart anew, But glad to have sat under Thunder and rain with you, And grateful too For sunlight on the garden.

I saw a dead bird flying through a broken sky. I heard it, and it said, "The world will never understand.

If there are fish that would swim or birds that would fly only after investigating the entire ocean or sky, they would find neither path nor place.

Do I, then, belong to the heavens? Why, if not so, should the heavens Fix me thus with their ceaseless blue stare, Luring me on, and my mind, higher Ever higher, up into the sky, Drawing me ceaselessly up To heights far, far above the human? Why, when balance has been strictly studied And flight calculated with the best of reason Till no aberrant element should, by rights, remain- Why, still, should the lust for ascension Seem, in itself, so close to madness? Nothing is that can satify me; Earthly novelty is too soon dulled; I am drawn higher and higher, more unstable, Closer and closer to the sun's effulgence. Why do these rays of reason destroy me? Villages below and meandering streams Grow tolerable as our distance grows. Why do they plead, approve, lure me With promise that I may love the human If only it is seen, thus, from afar- Although the goal could never have been love, Nor, had it been, could I ever have Belonged to the heavens? I have not envied the bird its freedom Nor have I longed for the ease of Nature, Driven by naught save this strange yearning For the higher, and the closer, to plunge myself Into the deep sky's blue, so contrary To all organic joys, so far From pleasures of superiority But higher, and higher, Dazzled, perhaps, by the dizzy incandescence Of waxen wings. Or do I then Belong, after all, to the earth? Why, if not so, should the earth Show such swiftness to encompass my fall? Granting no space to think or feel, Why did the soft, indolent earth thus Greet me with the shock of steel plate? Did the soft earth thus turn to steel Only to show me my own softness? That Nature might bring home to me That to fall, not to fly, is in the order of things, More natural by far than that improbable passion? Is the blue of the sky then a dream? Was it devised by the earth, to which I belonged, On account of the fleeting, white-hot intoxication Achieved for a moment by waxen wings? And did the heavens abet the plan to punish me? To punish me for not believing in myself Or for believing too much; Too earger to know where lay my allegiance Or vainly assuming that already I knew all; For wanting to fly off To the unknown Or the known: Both of them a single, blue speck of an idea?

You can dance. You can make me laugh. You've got x-ray eyes. You know how to sing. You're a diplomat. You've got it all. Everybody loves you. You can charm the birds out of the sky, But I, I've got one thing. You always know just what to say And when to go, But I've got one thing. You can see in the dark, But I've got one thing: I loved you better. Last night I woke up, Saw this angel. He flew in my window. And he said, Girl, pretty proud of yourself, huh?" And I looked around and said, Who me?" And he said, "The higher you fly, the faster you fall." He said, "Send it up. Watch it rise. See it fall, Gravity's rainbow. Send it up. Watch it rise. See it fall, Gravity's Angel.

As I watch, the sky fills with clouds of snow feathers from every kind of bird there ever was and even some that only exist in the imagination, like the bluebirds that fly over the rainbow.

Usually, when I dream of flying I am simply flapping my arms and somehow I lift off and glide through the sky. Last night was different. I missed you so much and my yearning was so powerful that I sprouted wings like a phoenix and soared to reach you. And now I finally understand: if you see lovers on a roof, do not worry. Surely, love has metamorphosed them.

She does not want the world to tell her how to live her life. She does not want the world to put her into a category. She will smile even when not all is good with her. She will believe what should not be. And she will dream wild! She is a bird. She just wants to fly in the wide blue sky!

Fly! There's a lot of sky out there for brave birds.

Where should we go after the last frontiers ? Where should the birds fly after the last sky ? Where should the plants sleep after the last breath of air ?

The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead - There were no birds to fly.

The truth remains quiet inside us,floundering like a battered bird,desperately wanting to spread its wings and fly away. -TARA

Your memories will be a flock of birds, silently flying in the sky. You will see them flying in and see them flying away. The memories will disappear and there will be nothing left.

When the woman you live with is an artist, every day is a surprise. Clare has turned the second bedroom into a wonder cabinet, full of small sculptures and drawings pinned up on every inch of wall space. There are coils of wire and rolls of paper tucked into shelves and drawers. The sculptures remind me of kites, or model airplanes. I say this to Clare one evening, standing in the doorway of her studio in my suit and tie, home from work, about to begin making dinner, and she throws one at me; it flies surprisingly well, and soon we are standing at opposite ends of the hall, tossing tiny sculptures at each other, testing their aerodynamics. The next day I come home to find that Clare has created a flock of paper and wire birds, which are hanging from the ceiling in the living room. A week later our bedroom windows are full of abstract blue translucent shapes that the sun throws across the room onto the walls, making a sky for the bird shapes Clare has painted there. It's beautiful. The next evening I'm standing in the doorway of Clare's studio, watching her finish drawing a thicket of black lines around a little red bird. Suddenly I see Clare, in her small room, closed in by all her stuff, and I realize that she's trying to say something, and I know what I have to do.

I am Cinna's bird, ignited, flying frantically to escape something inescapable. The feathers of flame that grow from my body. Beating my wings only fans the blaze. I consume myself, but to no end. Finally, my wings begin to falter, I lose height, and gravity pulls me into a foamy sea the color of Finnick's eyes. I float on my back, which continues to burn beneath the water, but the agony quiets to pain. When I am adrift and unable to navigate, that's when they come. The dead. The ones I loved fly as birds in the open sky above me. Soaring, weaving, calling to me to join them. I want so badly to follow them, but the seawater saturates my wings, making it impossible to lift them. The ones I hated have taken to the water, horrible scaled things that tear my salty flesh with needle teeth. Biting again and again. Dragging me beneath the surface. The small white bird tinged in pink dives down, buries her claws in my chest, and tries to keep me afloat. "No, Katniss! No! You can't go!" But the ones I hated are winning, and if she clings to me, she'll be lost as well. "Prim, let go!" And finally she does.

I left them there for the flies and the birds and the sun and the wind. In the silence outside the Tour du Silence, I left them. Where the faceless dead faced the sky, I left them there at the center of the world.

Someone once told me that children are like kites. You struggle just to get them in the air; they crash; you add a longer tail. Then they get caught in a tree; you climb up and bring them down, and untangle the string; you run to get them aloft again. Finally, the kite is airborne, and it flies higher and higher, as you let out more string, until it's so high in the sky, it looks like a bird. And if the string snaps, and you've done your job right, the kite will continue to soar in the wind, all by itself.

The truth is dark under your eyelids. What are you going to do about it? The birds are silent; there's no one to ask. All day long you'll squint at the gray sky. When the wind blows you'll shiver like straw. A meek little lamb you grew your wool Till they came after you with huge shears. Flies hovered over open mouth, Then they, too, flew off like the leaves, The bare branches reached after them in vain. Winter coming. Like the last heroic soldier Of a defeated army, you'll stay at your post, Head bared to the first snow flake. Till a neighbor comes to yell at you, You're crazier than the weather, Charlie.

If you see birds flying high in the sky, it means clear weather. However, if you see a lot of birds roosting on power lines and trees, this either means they're conspiring against you or falling air pressure and bad weather are on the way. Expect rain and/or a killer seagull attack in the next twelve hours.

Everybody wants to fly. At some stage in their lives, everyone looks up in the sky and sees the seemingly effortlessness of a bird in the gulf of air overhead and thinks: I wish, just one time, that could be me.

I knew I was a grain of sand in the vast desert that never ended and he was a sparkling star in the sky. I was a fish who couldn’t breathe in air and had to stay in dark waters forever while he was a majestic bird who soared so high that he barely touched the ground. I did not deserve him. I could only watch him from down here and wish, wish that he could come here someday. That he could know that I existed. But for that, he had to fall. He had to drop to the ground but I could not let that happen. And then I thought, birds are meant to fly and stars are meant to shine and if someone takes it away from them, they can't be the same anymore. So, I just prayed that his wings never fail him, that the star never explodes. And I was at peace.

You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead -- There were no birds to fly.

The birds fly in the wrong places and there are too many stars in the sky.

I adore the sky wearing rainbow shawl of love for the birds so that they could fly free in warmth after the storm

I want to hear the wind in the trees. Feel the sun warm my back. I want to see birds fly in a sky with no boundaries.

It is a bird’s imagination, not its wings, that determines how high it can fly.

Evening Solace The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed;­ The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed. And days may pass in gay confusion, And nights in rosy riot fly, While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion, The memory of the Past may die. But, there are hours of lonely musing, Such as in evening silence come, When, soft as birds their pinions closing, The heart's best feelings gather home. Then in our souls there seems to languish A tender grief that is not woe; And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish, Now cause but some mild tears to flow. And feelings, once as strong as passions, Float softly back-­a faded dream; Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations, The tale of others' sufferings seem. Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding, How longs it for that time to be, When, through the mist of years receding, Its woes but live in reverie ! And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer, On evening shade and loneliness; And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer, Feel no untold and strange distress­ Only a deeper impulse given By lonely hour and darkened room, To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven, Seeking a life and world to come.

The Aristocrat The Devil is a gentleman, and asks you down to stay At his little place at What'sitsname (it isn't far away). They say the sport is splendid; there is always something new, And fairy scenes, and fearful feats that none but he can do; He can shoot the feathered cherubs if they fly on the estate, Or fish for Father Neptune with the mermaids for a bait; He scaled amid the staggering stars that precipice, the sky, And blew his trumpet above heaven, and got by mastery The starry crown of God Himself, and shoved it on the shelf; But the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't brag himself. O blind your eyes and break your heart and hack your hand away, And lose your love and shave your head; but do not go to stay At the little place in What'sitsname where folks are rich and clever; The golden and the goodly house, where things grow worse for ever; There are things you need not know of, though you live and die in vain, There are souls more sick of pleasure than you are sick of pain; There is a game of April Fool that's played behind its door, Where the fool remains for ever and the April comes no more, Where the splendour of the daylight grows drearier than the dark, And life droops like a vulture that once was such a lark: And that is the Blue Devil that once was the Blue Bird; For the Devil is a gentleman, and doesn't keep his word.

Marsh is not swamp. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky. Slow-moving creeks wander, carrying the orb of the sun with them to the sea, and long-legged birds lift with unexpected grace—as though not built to fly—against the roar of a thousand snow geese. Then within the marsh, here and there, true swamp crawls into low-lying bogs, hidden in clammy forests. Swamp water is still and dark, having swallowed the light in its muddy throat. Even night crawlers are diurnal in this lair. There are sounds, of course, but compared to the marsh, the swamp is quiet because decomposition is cellular work. Life decays and reeks and returns to the rotted duff; a poignant wallow of death begetting life.

WHEN the voices of children are heard on the green, And laughing is heard on the hill, My heart is at rest within my breast, And everything else is still. Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down, And the dews of night arise; Come, come, leave off play, and let us away Till the morning appears in the skies. No, no, let us play, for it is yet day, And we cannot go to sleep; Besides, in the sky the little birds fly, And the hills are all cover’d with sheep. Well, well, go and play till the light fades away, And then go home to bed.’ The little ones leaped and shouted and laugh’d And all the hills echoed. - "Nurse’s Song

Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly. This has been always the instinct of Christendom, and especially the instinct of Christian art. Remember how Fra Angelico represented all his angels, not only as birds, but almost as butterflies. Remember how the most earnest mediaeval art was full of light and fluttering draperies, of quick and capering feet. It was the one thing that the modern Pre-raphaelites could not imitate in the real Pre-raphaelites. Burne-Jones could never recover the deep levity of the Middle Ages. In the old Christian pictures the sky over every figure is like a blue or gold parachute. Every figure seems ready to fly up and float about in the heavens. The tattered cloak of the beggar will bear him up like the rayed plumes of the angels. But the kings in their heavy gold and the proud in their robes of purple will all of their nature sink downwards, for pride cannot rise to levity or levitation. Pride is the downward drag of all things into an easy solemnity. One "settles down" into a sort of selfish seriousness; but one has to rise to a gay self-forgetfulness. A man "falls" into a brown study; he reaches up at a blue sky. Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.

Alice wished on feathers and dandelions to be a bird and fly far away into the golden seam of the horizon where the sea was sewn to the sky.

The birds of anonymity fly high above in our shared sky. Witness their beauty.

And do you see how beautiful and graceful the birds are when they are flying and soaring? The ground has many comforts for them to enjoy... But in the sky they are truly what a bird is meant to be. So it is with the human heart.

Look at me; I look like a flying pegasus.” “Squawk,” said Crabwing, dancing in the sand. Suddenly, and without warning, cold rain dumped from the sky, and Star was soaked in seconds. Star nickered to his bird. “That’s what I get for admiring myself.

Once upon a time, there was a bird. He was adorned with two perfect wings and with glossy, colorful, marvelous feathers. One day, a woman saw this bird and fell in love with him. She invited the bird to fly with her, and the two travelled across the sky in perfect harmony. She admired and venerated and celebrated that bird. But then she thought: He might want to visit far-off mountains! And she was afraid, afraid that she would never feel the same way about any other bird. And she thought: “I’m going to set a trap. The next time the bird appears, he will never leave again.” The bird, who was also in love, returned the following day, fell into the trap and was put in a cage. She looked at the bird every day. There he was, the object of her passion, and she showed him to her friends, who said: “Now you have everything you could possibly want.” However, a strange transformation began to take place: now that she had the bird and no longer needed to woo him, she began to lose interest. The bird, unable to fly and express the true meaning of his life, began to waste away and his feathers to lose their gloss; he grew ugly; and the woman no longer paid him any attention, except by feeding him and cleaning out his cage. One day, the bird died. The woman felt terribly sad and spent all her time thinking about him. But she did not remember the cage, she thought only of the day when she had seen him for the first time, flying contentedly amongst the clouds. If she had looked more deeply into herself, she would have realized that what had thrilled her about the bird was his freedom, the energy of his wings in motion, not his physical body. Without the bird, her life too lost all meaning, and Death came knocking at her door. “Why have you come?” she asked Death. “So that you can fly once more with him across the sky,” Death replied. “If you had allowed him to come and go, you would have loved and admired him ever more; alas, you now need me in order to find him again.

Bird of the sky still bound to the earth, soaring to unimaginable heights yet returning to perch in the willow. Death is near, always near and so...is life even in the ashes. Rise Up Phoenix. Live. Fly. Create!

What if something were to happen? What if something suddenly started throbbing? Then they would notice it was there and they'd think their hearts were going to burst. Then what good would their dykes, bulwarks, power houses, furnaces and pile drivers be to them? It can happen any time, perhaps right now: the omens are present. For example, the father of a family might go out for a walk, and, across the street, he'll see something like a red rag, blown towards him by the wind. And when the rag has gotten close to him he'll see that it is a side of rotten meat, grimy with dust, dragging itself along by crawling, skipping, a piece of writhing flesh rolling in the gutter, spasmodically shooting out spurts of blood. Or a mother might look at her child's cheek and ask him: "What's that, a pimple?" and see the flesh puff out a little, split, open, and at the bottom of the split an eye, a laughing eye might appear. Or they might feel things gently brushing against their bodies, like the caresses of reeds to swimmers in a river. And they will realize that their clothing has become living things. And someone else might feel something scratching in his mouth. He goes to the mirror, opens his mouth: and his tongue is an enormous, live centipede, rubbing its legs together and scraping his palate. He'd like to spit it out, but the centipede is a part of him and he will have to tear it out with his own hands. And a crowd of things will appear for which people will have to find new names, stone eye, great three cornered arm, toe crutch, spider jaw. And someone might be sleeping in his comfortable bed, in his quiet, warm room, and wake up naked on a bluish earth, in a forest of rustling birch trees, rising red and white towards the sky like the smokestacks of Jouxtebouville, with big bumps half way out of the ground, hairy and bulbous like onions. And birds will fly around these birch trees and pick at them with their beaks and make them bleed. Sperm will flow slowly, gently, from these wounds, sperm mixed with blood, warm and glassy with little bubbles.

I am that piece of a puzzle, which would never fit in any puzzles out there. I am that sky, which refused to turn blue every morning. I am that bird, which always had broken wings and yet always tried harder to fly. And I am that tunnel, which neither had a beginning nor end but one could always see the light at both the ends.

Don’t forget that birds with broken wings walking on the ground were once flying high up in the sky.

Nina Simone Feeling Good Birds flying high you know how I feel Sun in the sky you know how I feel Breeze driftin' on by you know how I feel It's a new dawn It's a new day It's a new life For me And I'm feeling good Fish in the sea you know how I feel River running free you know how I feel Blossom on the tree you know how I feel Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don't you know Butterflies all havin' fun you know what I mean Sleep in peace when day is done That's what I mean And this old world is a new world And a bold world For me Stars when you shine you know how I feel Scent of the pine you know how I feel Oh freedom is mine And I know how I feel

The dawn came - not the flaming sky that promises storm, but a golden dawn of infinite promise. The birds came flying up out of the east in wedge-shaped formation, and the mist lifted in soft wreaths of sun-shot silver. Colour came back to the world. The grass glowed with a green so vivid that it seemed pulsing, like flame, from some hidden fire in the earth, the distant woods took on all the amazing deep crimsons and purples of their winter colouring, the banks were studded with their jewels of lichens and bright moss, and above the wet hedges shone with sun-shot orbs of light.

I am not strong enough for life’s pleasure and sweetness, because a bird with broken wings cannot fly in the spacious sky. The eyes that are accustomed to the dim light of a candle are not strong enough to stare at the sun.

In the year 3,000,002,012 the Andromeda Galaxy may collide with our Milky Way. At first this sounds miserable, like a collision of two bird flocks. But galaxy members fly farly, not tip to tip. In a galactic collision the stars do not actually collide—as with crisscrossing marching bands, only the interstices collide. (Oh to be like a galaxy, to mingle without wrecking. But then we would have to be composed of so much more sky.) The spaces between stars are so wide that thousands of galaxies have to converge before the stars will crash.

When weary day does shed its light, I rest my head and dream, I ride the great dark bird of night, so tranquil and serene. Then I can touch the moon afar, which smiles up in the sky, and steal a twinkle from each star, as we go winging by.   We’ll fly the night to dawning light, and wait ’til dark has ceased, to marvel at the wondrous sight, of sunrise in the east. So slumber on, my little one, float soft as thistledown, and wake to see when night is done, fair morning’s golden gown.

If you want to access your power as a divine human being, you must search for the small inside of the big and for the big inside of the small. When you look up into the expanse of sky overhead, look for the stars, the planets, the birds that fly. Small things for the eye to spot. And when you look down into the the face of a streetside flower, look for joy, happiness, comfort, stillness, and a silent song. When you have mastered finding the small in the big and the big in the small, you will have mastered your own divinity.

I don't like righteousness, I don't. To my ears, righteousness sounds like the chatter made by birds in cages when the birds of the skies fly by.

Every nation needs two wings to fly. Any bird torn at the wings will never soar the skies.

I found a wounded bird,” Patricia said. “It can’t fly, its wing is ruined.

They said you are a bird, And birds should soar high. So I spread my wings, And decided to touch the sky. Foolish me -- for I am a penguin, And penguins can never fly.

Now when I hear birdsong, I feel an entry to that understory. When I am feeling too squeezed on the ground, exhausted by everything in my care, I look for a little sky. There are always birds flying back and forth, city birds flitting around our human edges, singing their songs.

The real flight of this hawk is impending. Still,this bird is yet to be tested for real. Though I have leaped over the seas, well,the entire sky is still remaining to fly. And make sure that ,i am gonna do it with all my heart and all my soul. #loveyoourlife #liveyourlife #hvFUN

There are gigantic trees that have grown tall into the winds and the clouds over the thousands of years of their lives, their tops are rustled and tossed by the mists of the atmosphere! Then there are the short trees that don't live for long, they are young with no deep roots and only a few annual rings to tell their stories.The tall, ancient trees sway in the realm of freedom while the short young trees cannot even raise their branches into that direction of the sky! Now, you are the bird who needs a tree to live in; if you choose to live in the tree which thrives in the realm of freedom, that doesn't mean you are not committed to that tree. You are still committed to your tree, but together you and your tree live in freedom. Freedom is not the absence of commitment. If you are the bird who chooses to fly around amongst the short trees and live in them, that's because your wings are too short to make it any higher and your vision too near to see any further into the clouds. And if you move from one short tree to the next short tree, that doesn't mean you are free, you are still down there below, freedom is still nowhere near you.

When fishing for birds, remember: The sky is a floating body of water. Use the proper bait, like Victorian poetry. Some ducks fly like they swim, and they love Browning everything behind them.

Do you not remember how your mother kissed a sunrise into your cheek every morning, for that light is still trapped within your skin, and you are soft there. Do not fashion yourself in the image of restraint or tarnished steel, do not turn to brick in the midst of uncertainty. May the wild bird within your heart fly, and may you dip your wings in ink so that your words fall from the sky, staining the Earth with love.

One Heart" Look at the birds. Even flying is born out of nothing. The first sky is inside you, Friend, open at either end of day. The work of wings was always freedom, fastening one heart to every falling thing.

1 Cain lifts Crow, that heavy black bird and strikes down Abel. Damn, says Crow, I guess this is just the beginning. 2 The white man, disguised as a falcon, swoops in and yet again steals a salmon from Crow's talons. Damn, says Crow, if I could swim I would have fled this country years ago. 3 The Crow God as depicted in all of the reliable Crow bibles looks exactly like a Crow. Damn, says Crow, this makes it so much easier to worship myself. 4 Among the ashes of Jericho, Crow sacrifices his firstborn son. Damn, says Crow, a million nests are soaked with blood. 5 When Crows fight Crows the sky fills with beaks and talons. Damn, says Crow, it's raining feathers. 6 Crow flies around the reservation and collects empty beer bottles but they are so heavy he can only carry one at a time. So, one by one, he returns them but gets only five cents a bottle. Damn, says Crow, redemption is not easy. 7 Crow rides a pale horse into a crowded powwow but none of the Indian panic. Damn, says Crow, I guess they already live near the end of the world.

Meditation is like going to the bottom of the sea, where everything is calm and tranquil. On the surface of the sea there may be a multitude of waves but the sea is not affected below. In its deepest depths, the sea is all silence. When we start meditating, first we try to reach our own inner existence, our true existence- that is to say, the bottom of the sea. Then when the waves come from the outside world, we are not affected. Fear, doubt, worry and all the earthly turmoils just wash away, because inside us is solid peace. Thoughts cannot touch us, because our mind is all peace, all silence, all oneness. Like fish in the sea, they jump and swim but leave no mark. When we are in our highest meditation, we feel that we are the sea, and the animals in the sea cannot affect us. We feel that we are the sky, and all the birds flying past cannot affect us. Our mind is the sky and our heart is the infinite sea. This is meditation.

In passion we lose the sense of right and wrong. In compassion we transcend the notions of right and wrong. Love is a flight from passion to compassion. A caged bird falls into the fire of passion only to burn the cage. Then it flies freely in the skies of compassion.

ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

A lark began to sing in the tree above her. Dortchen opened her eyes and looked up. It was such a small, plain, grey thing, yet its song was so full of joy. She could see its breast swell, its thin throat tremble. It lifted its wings, as if seeking to draw more air into its lungs. Song-notes were flung into the air, like golden coins thrown by a generous hand. All the lark's strength was poured into its music, all its joy. Dortchen took a deep breath, so deep that she felt her lungs expand and the muscles of her chest crack. She wanted to live like the lark did, filled with rapture. She stood up, looking up at the bird through the sunlit leaves. It flung its wings wide and soared away into the sky. She wanted to fly with it.

Amelia and Poppy both glanced at their younger sister quizzically. “Do you know what we’re talking about, Bea?” Amelia asked. “Yes, of course. Merripen’s in love with her. I knew it a long time ago, from the way he washed her window.” “Washed her window?” both older sisters asked at the same time. “Yes, when we lived in the cottage at Primrose Place. Win’s room had a casement window that looked out onto the big maple tree— do you remember? After the scarlet fever, when Win couldn’t get out of bed for the longest time and she was too weak to hold a book, she would just lie there and watch a birds’ nest on one of the tree limbs. She saw the baby swallows hatch and learn to fly. One day she complained that the window was so dirty, she could barely see through it, and it made the sky look grayish. So from then on Merripen always kept the glass spotless. Sometimes he climbed a ladder to wash the outside, and you know how afraid of heights he is. You never saw him do that?” “No,” Amelia said with difficulty, her eyes stinging. “I didn’t know he did that.” “Merripen said the sky should always be blue for her,” Beatrix said. “And that was when I knew he … are you crying, Poppy?” Poppy used a napkin to dab at the corners of her eyes. “No. I just inh-haled some pepper.” “So did I,” Amelia said, blowing her nose.

Eiffel Tower" To Robert Delaunay Eiffel Tower Guitar of the sky Your wireless telegraphy Attracts words As a rosebush the bees During the night The Seine no longer flows Telescope or bugle EIFFEL TOWER And it's a hive of words Or an inkwell of honey At the bottom of dawn A spider with barbed-wire legs Was making its web of clouds My little boy To climb the Eiffel Tower You climb on a song Do re mi fa sol la ti do We are up on top A bird sings in the telegraph antennae It's the wind Of Europe The electric wind Over there The hats fly away They have wings but they don't sing Jacqueline Daughter of France What do you see up there The Seine is asleep Under the shadow of its bridges I see the Earth turning And I blow my bugle Toward all the seas On the path Of your perfume All the bees and the words go their way On the four horizons Who has not heard this song I AM THE QUEEN OF THE DAWN OF THE POLES I AM THE COMPASS THE ROSE OF THE WINDS THAT FADES EVERY FALL AND ALL FULL OF SNOW I DIE FROM THE DEATH OF THAT ROSE IN MY HEAD A BIRD SINGS ALL YEAR LONG That's the way the Tower spoke to me one day Eiffel Tower Aviary of the world Sing Sing Chimes of Paris The giant hanging in the midst of the void Is the poster of France The day of Victory You will tell it to the stars

The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright-- And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. The moon was shining sulkily, Because she thought the sun Had got no business to be there After the day was done-- "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun!" The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying over head-- There were no birds to fly. The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: "If this were only cleared away," They said, "it WOULD be grand!" "If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year, Do you suppose," the Walrus said, "That they could get it clear?" "I doubt it," said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear. "O Oysters, come and walk with us!" The Walrus did beseech. "A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each." The eldest Oyster looked at him. But never a word he said: The eldest Oyster winked his eye, And shook his heavy head-- Meaning to say he did not choose To leave the oyster-bed. But four young oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat: Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat-- And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn't any feet. Four other Oysters followed them, And yet another four; And thick and fast they came at last, And more, and more, and more-- All hopping through the frothy waves, And scrambling to the shore. The Walrus and the Carpenter Walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock Conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood And waited in a row. "The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax-- Of cabbages--and kings-- And why the sea is boiling hot-- And whether pigs have wings." "But wait a bit," the Oysters cried, "Before we have our chat; For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!" "No hurry!" said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that. "A loaf of bread," the Walrus said, "Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed-- Now if you're ready Oysters dear, We can begin to feed." "But not on us!" the Oysters cried, Turning a little blue, "After such kindness, that would be A dismal thing to do!" "The night is fine," the Walrus said "Do you admire the view? "It was so kind of you to come! And you are very nice!" The Carpenter said nothing but "Cut us another slice: I wish you were not quite so deaf-- I've had to ask you twice!" "It seems a shame," the Walrus said, "To play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!" The Carpenter said nothing but "The butter's spread too thick!" "I weep for you," the Walrus said. "I deeply sympathize." With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size. Holding his pocket handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. "O Oysters," said the Carpenter. "You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?" But answer came there none-- And that was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one.

There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky above it, and birds flying up from it and singing with joy because the sun was rising. And on the whole enormous prairie there was no sign that any other human being had ever been there.

And the days move on and the names of the months change and the four seasons bury one another and it is spring again and yet again and the small streams that run over the rough sides of Gormenghast Mountain are big with rain while the days lengthen and summer sprawls across the countryside, sprawls in all the swathes of its green, with its gold and sticky head, with its slumber and the drone of doves and with its butterflies and its lizards and its sunflowers, over and over again, its doves, its butterflies, its lizards, its sunflowers, each one an echo-child while the fruit ripens and the grotesque boles of the ancient apple trees are dappled in the low rays of the sun and the air smells of such rotten sweetness as brings a hunger to the breast, and makes of the heart a sea-bed, and a tear, the fruit of salt and water, ripens, fed by a summer sorrow, ripens and falls … falls gradually along the cheekbones, wanders over the wastelands listlessly, the loveliest emblem of the heart’s condition. And the days move on and the names of the months change and the four seasons bury one another and the field-mice draw upon their granaries. The air is murky, and the sun is like a raw wound in the grimy flesh of a beggar, and the rags of the clouds are clotted. The sky has been stabbed and has been left to die above the world, filthy, vast and bloody. And then the great winds come and the sky is blown naked, and a wild bird screams across the glittering land. And the Countess stands at the window of her room with the white cats at her feet and stares at the frozen landscape spread below her, and a year later she is standing there again but the cats are abroad in the valleys and a raven sits upon her heavy shoulder. And every day the myriad happenings. A loosened stone falls from a high tower. A fly drops lifeless from a broken pane. A sparrow twitters in a cave of ivy. The days wear out the months and the months wear out the years, and a flux of moments, like an unquiet tide, eats at the black coast of futurity. And Titus Groan is wading through his boyhood.

don’t know what it is. They’ll forget that that thing flying through the sky is beyond all words, that it’s an expression of the immensity of life. It’s actually an extraordinary and wondrous thing that flies through the sky. But as soon as we name it, we think we know what it is. We see “bird,” and we almost discount it.

A soft liquid joy like the noise of many waters flowed over his memory and he felt in his heart the soft peace of silent spaces of fading tenuous skies above the waters, of oceanic silence, of swallows flying through the seadusk over the flowing waters. A soft liquid joy flowed through the words where the soft long vowels hurtled noiselessly and fell away, lapping and flowing back and ever shaking the white bells of their waves in mute chime and mute peal and soft low swooning cry; and he felt that the augury he had sought in the wheeling darting birds and in the pale space of sky above him had come forth from his heart like a bird from a turret quietly and swiftly.

The Mockingbird All summer the mockingbird in his pearl-gray coat and his white-windowed wings flies from the hedge to the top of the pine and begins to sing, but it’s neither lilting nor lovely, for he is the thief of other sounds— whistles and truck brakes and dry hinges plus all the songs of other birds in his neighborhood; mimicking and elaborating, he sings with humor and bravado, so I have to wait a long time for the softer voice of his own life to come through. He begins by giving up all his usual flutter and settling down on the pine’s forelock then looking around as though to make sure he’s alone; then he slaps each wing against his breast, where his heart is, and, copying nothing, begins easing into it as though it was not half so easy as rollicking, as though his subject now was his true self, which of course was as dark and secret as anyone else’s, and it was too hard— perhaps you understand— to speak or to sing it to anything or anyone but the sky.

A bird is born knowing how to fly, but has to learn to conquer the skies.

Birds are flying over Europe skies, Tell me please why can't I?

The Sun challenges us to Shine,the Clouds remind us to Move,the birds tell us We too can Fly and the sky tells us that there is no limit to our Dreams and Goals.-RVM

Life is like a beautiful bird that comes to your hand.If you let it go,it will fly into the sky,never to return.-RVM

A bird will only fall from the sky when it stops believing in its ability to fly, and a fish will only drown in water when it stops believing in its ability to swim.

Falling from the sky like the rain, And I fly and sing like the little birds..., Movements that are not in vain, Everything has a life made of words.

A rainbow in the sky or a bird that can fly often create Joy that money can't buy!

Birds that cannot fly high into the sky rejoice exceedingly and sing sweet melodies when they get to the top of the tallest tree on the highest mountain!

Why can't we fly like birds in the sky? Because we are like trees in a forest. We stand and take root. But dad, I don't want to stay in one place. I want to fly.

What is a bird if it can't fly? It might as well be a cockroach.

Afraid even to look at the sky The birds of cage do seldom fly

Instead of the birds of the sky and beast of the field, the gods were more than men because Man needed them to be, for what could the world be if Man were the best of all creatures?

For a migratory bird, there is one supreme truth, “Sky is the freedom.” If it enters into a room by accident, it tries to get out by flying upward. It keeps banging its head against the ceiling. It fails to find the door or windows because it firmly believes that freedom is upward, not sideways. Challenge your existing beliefs no matter how true they seem to you.

44. fly high dreaming bird higher and higher on the wire of time no road blocks no stopping to think through why wings flap what makes the worthy soar only this pure heaven right now sky high

The ones I loved fly as birds in the open sky above me. Soaring, weaving, calling to me to join them. I want so badly to folow them, but the seawater saturates my wings, making it impossible to lift them.

Human beings have a unique ability to turn anything into suffering. Imagine that humans have started flying like birds. Flying has become a status symbol. Living on the ground is considered shameful. There is a mad competition to stay in the sky all the time. People don't land. They suffer. Counsellors teach how to ease stress of flying. And spiritual Gurus say, "You fools! It's OK to land and live in peace.

On Sunday, a lambent crevice opened up in the street outside my house, By Tuesday birds were flying into it. "I probably won't miss you," my mother said, "I'm only interested in the end of the world," I replied. Many find it difficult to breath without the atmosphere but we knew how. We just stopped breathing. We're at the Moonlite All-Nite Dinner and they're serving up fruit from the plants growing out of the waitress. The CLOSED sign whispers, "Please, don't touch me." We watch bodies fall to the ground outside like deep-sea creatures surfacing. You turn to me and ask, "Do you ever think about suicide?" I look away from you and close my eyes, eat the raspberries to confuse the blood in my mouth. Now you're in the only car in the parking lot at midnight and you're watching me throw stones at the moon, which hangs low in the sky so he can look into your house. Your sister tried to touch him from her bedroom window once, and he flinched; now he and the oceans watch her with a quiet concern. The lilac sky is trying to rest her head on his shoulder, all trees gradually growing through her. A hummingbird whispers to you, "Be careful, under her dress is her skin," and then builds his nest in the middle of the highway, I look back at you, and you close your eyes.

He watched their flight; bird after bird: a dark flash, a swerve, a flutter of wings. He tried to count them before all their darting quivering bodies passed: six, ten, eleven: and wondered were they odd or even in number. Twelve, thirteen: for two came wheeling down from the upper sky. They were flying high and low but ever round and round in straight and curving lines and ever flying from left to right, circling about a temple of air.

I found a wounded bird,” Patricia said. “It can’t fly, its wing is ruined.” “I bet I can make it fly,” Roberta said, and Patricia knew she was talking about her rocket launcher. “Bring it here. I’ll make it fly real good.

There was a moose, standing on the top stair with birds flying around its head, foxes peeking between its legs, rabbits trying to squeeze between hedgehogs and the foxes while trying to tell off the blind bear behind them.

it is not because they run out of sky that birds turn back, it is because they lack the strength to keep on flying. just so, the sravaka disciples and the bodhisattvas, can not express buddha’s qualities, as infinite as space.

Everything is amazing right now and nobody’s happy. Like, in my lifetime the changes in the world have been incredible… Flying is the worst because people come back from flights and they tell you…a horror story…They’re like: “It was the worst day of my life. First of all, we didn’t board for twenty minutes, and then we get on the plane and they made us sit there on the runway…” Oh really, what happened next? Did you fly through the air incredibly, like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight you non-contributing zero?! You’re flying! It’s amazing! Everybody on every plane should just constantly be going: “Oh my God! Wow!” You’re flying! You’re sitting in a chair, in the sky!

Maybe you have seen the shape of a tree shimmer and fly apart as a flock of birds. Maybe you have heard birds awaken a landscape into a dream. Maybe for you it became a way of knowing how the notes in their throats pulse an afternoon, measure distance, reveal a hidden grid of a thousand kingdoms calling, responding. If you have seen a sudden meteor streak the night too brief for wishes then you know the way the sky can surprise. — Amy Sage Webb Baza, from “Epistemology,” 18 December 2020

There are four forces which work together if you want to put something into the sky and have it stay there. One of these is lift. Lift is made when the air pressure under a wing is greater than the air pressure over the wing. Then the wing gets pushed upwards. That’s how birds fly. That’s how kites fly – a kite is basically just a solitary wing. That’s how airplanes fly. But people need lift too. People don’t get moving, they don’t soar, they don’t achieve great heights, without something buoying them up.

Poem in October" It was my thirtieth year to heaven Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood And the mussel pooled and the heron Priested shore The morning beckon With water praying and call of seagull and rook And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall Myself to set foot That second In the still sleeping town and set forth. My birthday began with the water- Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name Above the farms and the white horses And I rose In rainy autumn And walked abroad in a shower of all my days. High tide and the heron dived when I took the road Over the border And the gates Of the town closed as the town awoke. A springful of larks in a rolling Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling Blackbirds and the sun of October Summery On the hill's shoulder, Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly Come in the morning where I wandered and listened To the rain wringing Wind blow cold In the wood faraway under me. Pale rain over the dwindling harbour And over the sea wet church the size of a snail With its horns through mist and the castle Brown as owls But all the gardens Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud. There could I marvel My birthday Away but the weather turned around. It turned away from the blithe country And down the other air and the blue altered sky Streamed again a wonder of summer With apples Pears and red currants And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother Through the parables Of sun light And the legends of the green chapels And the twice told fields of infancy That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine. These were the woods the river and sea Where a boy In the listening Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide. And the mystery Sang alive Still in the water and singingbirds. And there could I marvel my birthday Away but the weather turned around. And the true Joy of the long dead child sang burning In the sun. It was my thirtieth Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon Though the town below lay leaved with October blood. O may my heart's truth Still be sung On this high hill in a year's turning.

Of all the passers-through, the species that means most to me, even more than geese and cranes, is the upland plover, the drab plump grassland bird that used to remind my gentle hunting uncle of the way things once had been, as it still reminds me. It flies from the far Northern prairies to the pampas of Argentina and then back again in spring, a miracle of navigation and a tremendous journey for six or eight ounces of flesh and feathers and entrails and hollow bones, fueled with bug meat. I see them sometimes in our pastures, standing still or dashing after prey in the grass, but mainly I know their presence through the mournful yet eager quavering whistles they cast down from the night sky in passing, and it makes me think of what the whistling must have been like when the American plains were virgin and their plover came through in millions. To grow up among tradition-minded people leads one often into backward yearnings and regrets, unprofitable feelings of which I was granted my share in youth-not having been born in time to get killed fighting Yankees, for one, or not having ridden up the cattle trails. But the only such regret that has strongly endured is not to have known the land when when it was whole and sprawling and rich and fresh, and the plover that whet one's edge every spring and every fall. In recent decades it has become customary- and right, I guess, and easy enough with hindsight- to damn the ancestral frame of mind that ravaged the world so fully and so soon. What I myself seem to damn mainly, though, is just not having seen it. Without any virtuous hindsight, I would likely have helped in the ravaging as did even most of those who loved it best. But God, to have viewed it entire, the soul and guts of what we had and gone forever now, except in books and such poignant remnants as small swift birds that journey to and from the distant Argentine and call at night in the sky.

A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air. Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked. “That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbor. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth—we’re chickens.” So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.

And yet, in Raissa, at every moment there is a child in a window who laughs seeing a dog that has jumped on a shed to bite into a piece of polenta dropped by a stonemason who has shouted from the top of the scaffolding, "Darling, let me dip into it," to a young servant-maid who holds up a dish of ragout under the pergola, happy to serve it to the umbrella-maker who is celebrating a successful transaction, a white lace parasol bought to display at the races by a great lady in love with an officer who has smiled at her taking the last jump, happy man, and still happier his horse, flying over the obstacles, seeing a francolin flying in the sky, happy bird freed from its cage by a painter happy at having painted it feather by feather, speckled with red and yellow in the illumination of that page in the volume where the philosopher says: "Also in Raissa, city of sadness, there runs an invisible thread that binds one living being to another for a moment, then unravels, then is stretched again between moving points as it draws new and rapid patterns so that at every second the unhappy city contains a happy city unaware of its own existence.

There was a man of double deed, Who sowed his garden full of seed; When the seed began to grow, 'Twas like a garden full of snow; When the snow began to melt, 'Twas like a ship without a belt; When the ship began to sail, 'Twas like a bird without a tail; When the bird began to fly, 'Twas like an eagle in the sky; When the sky began to roar, 'Twas like a lion at my door; When my door began to crack, 'Twas like a stick across my back; When my back began to smart, 'Twas like a penknife in my heart; And when my heart began to bleed, 'Twas death, and death, and death indeed.

The Troubadours Etc." Just for this evening, let's not mock them. Not their curtsies or cross-garters or ever-recurring pepper trees in their gardens promising, promising. At least they had ideas about love. All day we've driven past cornfields, past cows poking their heads through metal contraptions to eat. We've followed West 84, and what else? Irrigation sprinklers fly past us, huge wooden spools in the fields, lounging sheep, telephone wires, yellowing flowering shrubs. Before us, above us, the clouds swell, layers of them, the violet underneath of clouds. Every idea I have is nostalgia. Look up: there is the sky that passenger pigeons darkened and filled— darkened for days, eclipsing sun, eclipsing all other sound with the thunder of their wings. After a while, it must have seemed that they followed not instinct or pattern but only one another. When they stopped, Audubon observed, they broke the limbs of stout trees by the weight of the numbers. And when we stop we'll follow—what? Our hearts? The Puritans thought that we are granted the ability to love only through miracle, but the troubadours knew how to burn themselves through, how to make themselves shrines to their own longing. The spectacular was never behind them. Think of days of those scarlet-breasted, blue-winged birds above you. Think of me in the garden, humming quietly to myself in my blue dress, a blue darker than the sky above us, a blue dark enough for storms, though cloudless. At what point is something gone completely? The last of the sunlight is disappearing even as it swells— Just for this evening, won't you put me before you until I'm far enough away you can believe in me? Then try, try to come closer— my wonderful and less than.

Marsh is not swamp. Marsh is a space of light, where grass grows in water, and water flows into the sky. Slow-moving creeks wander, carrying the orb of the sun with them to the sea, and long-legged birds lift with unexpected grace—as though not built to fly—against the roar of a thousand snow geese.

By that tomb grows Gibran's sorrow together with the cypress trees, and above the tomb his spirit flickers every night commemorating Selma, joining the branches of the trees in sorrowful wailing, mourning and lamenting the going of Selma, who, yesterday was a beautiful tune on the lips of life and today is a silent secret in the bosom of the earth. . Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow. Solitude is the ally of sorrow as well as a companion of spiritual exaltation. . He lives spiritually in the past because the present passes swiftly, and the future seems to him an approach to the oblivion of the grave. . Now I know that there is something higher than heaven and deeper than the ocean and stranger than life and death and time. I know now what I did not know before. . When I walked in the fields, I saw the token of Eternity in the awakening of nature, and when I sat by the seashore I heard the waves singing the song of Eternity. . We were three people, gathered and crushed by the hands of destiny; and all of us were toys in the hands of fate. . Be happy because I shall live in you after my death. . This is the only friend I shall have after you are gone, but how can he console me when he is suffering also? How can a broken heart find consolation in a disappointed soul? A sorrowful woman cannot be comforted by her neighbour's sorrow, nor can a bird fly with broken wings. . It is hard to write down in words the memories of those hours when I met Selma −−those heavenly hours, filled with pain, happiness, sorrow, hope, and misery. . A bird with broken wings cannot fly in the spacious sky. . He was born like a thought and died like a sigh and disappeared like a shadow. . His life began at the end of the night and ended at the beginning of the day.

It was not the freedom of imagination that pushed me to go beyond the boundaries of what my humanity meant. Rather it is reality itself which affirms that I am nothing less than an ordinary human being. In other words, as freely as birds fly in the sky, at one time they need reality as a place to stand on.

AWAKENING To open both your drowsy eyes, To stretch your limbs and realise That day is here. To watch the dancing, shifting beam Of sun, awake yet half in dream, Uncertain if the fitful gleam Be far or near. To turn with soft, contented sigh, And through the window watch the sky, All opal blue. To feel the air steal in the room, Made fragrant by the soft perfume Of lime-trees, when their scented bloom Is damp with dew. To hear the rustling voice of leaves, The chirp of birds beneath the eaves, But now awake. The tiny hum of timid things That fly with gauzy, fragile wings, Where yet the dusk to daylight clings, When mornings break. To feel the soul look forth and smile, Contented with each fruitful mile That it beholds. To hear the heart beat loud and strong, In unison with Nature's song, That echoes tremulous and long While dawn unfolds. To know yourself a thing complete, With strength of mind and limb replete, With vast desire; A creature made to dominate The lesser things of earth, a fate On whom the universe must wait, With force entire. And then to cry in deep delight God made the world and made it right; Dear Heaven above! Was ere completeness so complete, Was ever sweetness half so sweet, Was ever loving half so meet; Thank God for love.

From his beach bag the man took an old penknife with a red handle and began to etch the signs of the letters onto nice flat pebbles. At the same time, he spoke to Mondo about everything there was in the letters, about everything you could see in them when you looked and when you listened. He spoke about A, which is like a big fly with its wings pulled back; about B, which is funny, with its two tummies; or C and D, which are like the moon, a crescent moon or a half-full moon; and then there was O, which was the full moon in the black sky. H is high, a ladder to climb up trees or to reach the roofs of houses; E and F look like a rake and a shovel; and G is like a fat man sitting in an armchair. I dances on tiptoes, with a little head popping up each time it bounces, whereas J likes to swing. K is broken like an old man, R takes big strides like a soldier, and Y stands tall, its arms up in the air, and it shouts: help! L is a tree on the river's edge, M is a mountain, N is for names, and people waving their hands, P is asleep on one paw, and Q is sitting on its tail; S is always a snake, Z is always a bolt of lightning, T is beautiful, like the mast on a ship, U is like a vase, V and W are birds, birds in flight; and X is a cross to help you remember.

Feathers glittering the color of amethyst against the dying light of the day, long tails trailing in the breeze like kites, wings shimmering with every beat. They looked so oblivious to their majesty, like flying and painting the sky with purple was just something they did, rather than something that made my knees shake.

The elders say- difficult to prove- that winged creatures also dream. The birds are lovers of heights, always searching out landing spots, never constant here at the foot of the human race. 'It's that they discovered a magical advantage...' they say, 'the sound of silence.' At the foot of the clouds the raindrops come earlier, it's true, and the silence of the sky is something unattainable for those who don't fly- we have never experimented. The dream of the birds was that man of them headed for a land where they experienced a similar magic to that lived by them. In the final analysis, music is the only human sound similar to that of silence.

The more south we were, the more deep a sky it seemed, till, in the Valley of Mexico, I thought it held back an element too strong for life, and that the flamy brilliance of blue stood off this menace and sometimes, like a sheath or silk membrane, shoed the weight it held in sags. So when later he would fly high over the old craters on the plain, coaly bubbles of the underworld, dangerous red everywhere from the sun, and then coats of snow on the peak of the cones—gliding like a Satan—well, it was here the old priests, before the Spaniards, waited for Aldebaran to come into the middle of heaven to tell them whether or not life would go on for another cycle, and when they received their astronomical sign built their new fire inside the split and emptied chest of a human sacrifice. And also, hereabouts, worshipers disguised as gods and as gods in the disguise of birds, jumped from platforms fixed on long poles, and glided as they spun by the ropes—feathered serpents, and eagles too, the voladores, or fliers. There still are such plummeters, in market places, as there seem to be remnants or conversions or equivalents of all the old things. Instead of racks or pyramids of skulls still in their hair and raining down scraps of flesh there are corpses of dogs, rats, horses, asses, by the roads; the bones dug out of the rented graves are thrown on a pile when the lease is up; and there are the coffins looking like such a rough joke on the female form, sold in the open shops, black, white, gray, and in all sizes, with their heavy death fringes daubed in Sapolio silver on the black. Beggars in dog voices on the church steps enact the last feebleness for you with ancient Church Spanish, and show their old flails of stump and their sores. The burden carriers with the long lines, hemp lines they wind over their foreheads to hold the loads on their backs, lie in the garbage at siesta and give themselves the same exhibited neglect the dead are shown. Which is all to emphasize how openly death is received everywhere, in the beauty of the place, and how it is acknowledged that anyone may be roughly handled—the proudest—pinched, slapped, and set down, thrown down; for death throws even worse in men’s faces and makes it horrible and absurd that one never touched should be roughly dumped under, dumped upon.

I can look back one day and remember that I stood here, in the heart of an icicle kingdom, with a frosted city at my feet and a shivering sky at my cheeks. This is so much better than a cage. ⁣ A smile plays about my lips as I breathe in the breeze. I think this is what it must be like for a bird before it lets out its wings and flies.

a place of unlimited possibility,” he said. “At any moment, anyone or anything could appear. A parade could march through the field, a flock of birds from a tropical land could fly across the skies, or a king from a distant country could sail through the waters on a massive ship. I suppose any child is happiest wherever his imagination is stimulated.

Few things are harder to visualise than that a cold snowbound landscape, so marrow-chillingly quiet and lifeless, will, within mere months, be green and lush and warm, quivering with all manner of life, from birds warbling and flying through the trees to swarms of insects hanging in scattered clusters in the air. Nothing in the winter landscape presages the scent of sun-warmed heather and moss, trees bursting with sap and thawed lakes ready for spring and summer, nothing presages the feeling of freedom that can come over you when the only white that can be seen is the clouds gliding across the blue sky above the blue water of the rivers gently flowing down to the sea, the perfect, smooth, cool surface, broken now and then by rocks, rapids and bathing bodies. It is not there, it does not exist, everything is white and still, and if the silence is broken it is by a cold wind or a lone crow caw-cawing. But it is coming ... it is coming... One evening in March the snow turns to rain, and the piles of snow collapse. One morning in April there are buds on the trees, and there is a trace of green in the yellow grass. Daffodils appear, white and blue anemones too. Then the warm air stands like a pillar among the trees on the slopes. On sunny inclines buds have burst, here and there cherry trees are in blossom. If you are sixteen years old all of this makes an impression, all of this leaves its mark, for this is the first spring you know is spring, with all your sense you know this is spring, and it is the last, for all coming springs pale in comparison with your first. If, moreover, you are in love, well, then ... then it is merely a question of holding on. Holding on to all the happiness, all the beauty, all the future that resides in everything.

The zone of melancholy which I then entered was as distinct from the zone in which I had been bounding with joy a moment before as, in certain skies, a band of pink is separated, as though by a line invisibly ruled, from a band of green or black. You may see a bird flying across the pink; it draws near the border-line, touches it, enters and is lost upon the black.

On average, odd years have been the best for me. I’m at a point where everyone I meet looks like a version of someone I already know. Without fail, fall makes me nostalgic for things I’ve never experienced. The sky is molting. I don’t know if this is global warming or if the atmosphere is reconfiguring itself to accommodate all the new bright suffering. I am struck by an overwhelming need to go to Iceland. Despite all awful variables, we are still full of ideas as possible as unsexed fruit. I was terribly sorry to be the one to explain to the first graders the connection between the sunset and pollution. On Venus you and I are not even a year old. Then there were two skies. The one we fly through and the one we bury ourselves in. I appreciate my wide beveled spatula which fulfills the moment I realized I would grow up and own such things. I am glad I do not yet want sexy bathroom accessories. Such things. In the story we were together every time. On his wedding day, the stone in his chest not fully melted but enough. Sometimes I feel like there are birds flying out of me.

We were sitting side by side, with our legs swinging on the wall of the tower, and the Clouds™ were all turning pink in front of us. We could see all these miles of filet mignon from where we were sitting, and some places where the genetic coding had gone wrong and there, in the middle of the beef, the tissue had formed a horn or an eye or a heart blinking up at the sunset, which was this brag red, and which hit on all these miles of muscle and made it flex and quiver, with all these shudders running across the top of it, and birds were flying over, crying kind of sad, maybe looking for garbage, and the whole thing, with the beef and the birds and the sky, it glowed like there was a light inside it, which it was time to show us now.

I’m not for you,” I say desperately. “We are so different. Our lives are a thousand and one worlds apart. It wouldn’t work. And it’s dangerous.” But his face only brightens. “Then you do feel the same.” “We are not the same—and that is the whole point! I am not human, Aladdin. Everything that was once human in me was destroyed, and I was forged into something entirely different. I’m not here to help you—I was never here to help you, or any of my masters.” He shakes his head. “I don’t believe that.” “It doesn’t matter what you believe,” I say bitterly. “It is what it is, and it has nothing to do with what you want.” He walks around me, forcing me to face him. “You helped me get away from Darian in the desert. You got me into the palace when you could have let them find out who I really was. You taught me to dance, for sky’s sake! You’ve had a hundred opportunities to trick me and betray me, but you don’t. You’ve helped me when I didn’t wish for it.” “A chicken doesn’t fly like other birds, but it is still a bird.” “Zahra!” He spreads his hands, the wind ruffling his hair. “You do care. I see it when you think I’m not looking.

I look forward to seeing you in the “jungle” as our warriors meet and join the battle drum that calls for unity in the struggle for breaking the chains of modern slavery—like the butterflies flying the skies and the birds over the seas, all are welcomed for both ear and eye—promises of victory are high, for even if unattainable today, tomorrow still holds the torch and dream, like fire of paradise, glory of life, glory of eternity!

Q: Did God create man or did man create God? A: Well no, not really. The infinite and observable cause and effect that permeates all manifestation is prior to and beyond any and all thoughtforms, beliefs, or ideologies that arise from the tiny sentient material entities who attempt to verbally define the Great Sacred Mystery of Source. To imagine that a human is the cause of Source is like a bird imagining they created the sky through which they fly...

When he found out his wife was unfaithful, Hector Castillo told his son to get in the car because they were going fishing. It was after midnight but this was nothing unusual. The Rickenbacker Bridge suspended across Biscayne Bay was full of night fishermen leaning on the railings, avoiding going home to their wives. Except Hector didn't bring any fishing gear with him. He led his son, Carlito, who'd just turned three, by the hand to the concrete wall, picked him up by his waist, and held him so that the boy grinned and stretched his arms out like a bird, telling his papi he was flying, flying, and Hector said, "Si, Carlito, tienes alas, you have wings." Then Hector pushed little Carlito up into the air, spun him around, and the boy giggled, kicking up his legs up and about, telling his father, "Higher, Papi! Higher!" before Hector took a step back and with all his might hoisted the boy as high in the sky as he'd go, told him he loved him, and threw his son over the railing into the sea.

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free" I wish I knew how It would feel to be free I wish I could break All the chains holdin' me I wish I could say All the things that I should say Say 'em loud say 'em clear For the whole 'round world to hear I wish I could share All the love that's in my heart Remove all the bars That keep us apart I wish you could know What it means to be me Then you'd see and agree That every man should be free I wish I could give All I'm longin' to give I wish I could live like I'm longing to live I wish I could do all the things that I can do And though I'm way over due I'd be startin' a new Well I wish I could be Like a bird in the sky How sweet it would be If I found I could fly Oh I'd soar to the sun And look down at the sea Then I'd sing 'cause I'd know yeah And I'd sing 'cause I'd know yeah And I'd sing 'cause I'd know I'd know how it feels I'd know how it feels to be free Yeah, yeah I'd know how it feels Yes, I'd know I'd know how it feels, how it feels To be free, oh lord

Hans?” the Fairy Godmother said. “Can you remember what made you happy when you were a young boy?” It didn’t take him long to remember. “Places like this promenade,” he said. “Why?” she asked. “It’s a place of unlimited possibility,” he said. “At any moment, anyone or anything could appear. A parade could march through the field, a flock of birds from a tropical land could fly across the skies, or a king from a distant country could sail through the waters on a massive ship. I suppose any child is happiest wherever his imagination is stimulated.” “Interesting,” she said.

-Part 2- Worry not about the future. You might not go there. Live not in the past. Its doors are locked. Its keys are in the skies. But remember this: Your heart is a castle. Guard it with a cage of gold. Only he who is destined to enter it will seek the key. Your mind is a kingdom of grace. Keep its gates high and mighty. Keep it guarded with your faith. Befriend silence. It never betrays you. You are the master of your journey. You are the owner of your path. You are a bird, but unless you fly, you are not free. Only after your wings are broken will you realize that freedom is in your hands. So be free.

Sunday Morning I Complacencies of the peignoir, and late Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair, And the green freedom of a cockatoo Upon a rug mingle to dissipate The holy hush of ancient sacrifice. She dreams a little, and she feels the dark Encroachment of that old catastrophe, As a calm darkens among water-lights. The pungent oranges and bright, green wings Seem things in some procession of the dead, Winding across wide water, without sound. The day is like wide water, without sound, Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet Over the seas, to silent Palestine, Dominion of the blood and sepulchre. II Why should she give her bounty to the dead? What is divinity if it can come Only in silent shadows and in dreams? Shall she not find in comforts of the sun, In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else In any balm or beauty of the earth, Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven? Divinity must live within herself: Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow; Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued Elations when the forest blooms; gusty Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights; All pleasures and all pains, remembering The bough of summer and the winter branch. These are the measures destined for her soul. III Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth. No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind He moved among us, as a muttering king, Magnificent, would move among his hinds, Until our blood, commingling, virginal, With heaven, brought such requital to desire The very hinds discerned it, in a star. Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be The blood of paradise? And shall the earth Seem all of paradise that we shall know? The sky will be much friendlier then than now, A part of labor and a part of pain, And next in glory to enduring love, Not this dividing and indifferent blue. IV She says, "I am content when wakened birds, Before they fly, test the reality Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings; But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields Return no more, where, then, is paradise?" There is not any haunt of prophecy, Nor any old chimera of the grave, Neither the golden underground, nor isle Melodious, where spirits gat them home, Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured As April's green endures; or will endure Like her remembrance of awakened birds, Or her desire for June and evening, tipped By the consummation of the swallow's wings

A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air. Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked.

When I read things like, “The foundations of capitalism are shattering,” I’m like, maybe we need some time where we’re walking around with a donkey with pots clanging on the sides. . . . ’Cause now we live in an amazing world, and it’s wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots. . . . Flying is the worst one, because people come back from flights, and they tell you their story. . . . They’re like, “It was the worst day of my life. . . . We get on the plane and they made us sit there on the runway for forty minutes.” . . . Oh really, then what happened next? Did you fly through the air, incredibly, like a bird? Did you soar into the clouds, impossibly? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight, and then land softly on giant tires that you couldn’t even conceive how they fuckin’ put air in them? . . . You’re sitting in a chair in the sky. You’re like a Greek myth right now! . . . People say there’s delays? . . . Air travel’s too slow? New York to California in five hours. That used to take thirty years! And a bunch of you would die on the way there, and you’d get shot in the neck with an arrow, and the other passengers would just bury you and put a stick there with your hat on it and keep walking. . . . The Wright Brothers would kick us all in the [crotch] if they knew.1

Here is the voice of my main Character in my Talon book series, I’ll let her introduce herself to you: My name is Matica and I am a special needs child with a growth disability. I am stuck in the body of a two year old, even though I am ten years old when my story begins in the first book of the Talon series, TALON, COME FLY WITH ME. Because of that disability, (I am saying ‘that’ disability, not ‘my’ disability because it’s a thing that happens to me, nothing more and because I am not accepting it as something bad. I can say that now after I learned to cope with it.) I was rejected by the local Indians as they couldn’t understand that that condition is not a sickness and so it can’t be really cured. It’s just a disorder of my body. But I never gave up on life and so I had lots of adventures roaming around the plateau where we live in Peru, South America, with my mother’s blessings. But after I made friends with my condors I named Tamo and Tima, everything changed. It changed for the good. I was finally loved. And I am the hero and I embrace my problem. In better words: I had embraced my problem before I made friends with my condors Tamo and Tima. I held onto it and I felt sorry for myself and cried a lot, wanting to run away or something worse. But did it help me? Did it become better? Did I grow taller? No, nothing of that helped me. I didn’t have those questions when I was still in my sorrow, but all these questions came to me later, after I was loved and was cherished. One day I looked up into the sky and saw the majestic condors flying in the air. Here and now, I made up my mind. I wanted to become friends with them. I believed if I could achieve that, all my sorrow and rejection would be over. And true enough, it was over. I was loved. I even became famous. And so, if you are in a situation, with whatever your problem is, find something you could rely on and stick to it, love that and do with that what you were meant to do. And I never run from conflicts.

The world, he now perceived, was in fact a great, flat wheel with a myriad spokes of water, trees and grass, for ever turning and turning beneath the sun and moon. At each spoke was an animal-all the animals and birds he had ever known-horses, dogs, chaffinches, mice, hedgehogs,rabbits, cows, sheep, rooks and many more which he did not recognize-a huge, striped cat, and a monstrous fish spurting water in a fountain to the sky. At the centre, on the axle itself, stood a man, who ceaselessly lashed and lashed the creatures with a whip to make them drive the wheel round. Some shrieked aloud as they bled and struggled, others silently toppled and were trodden down beneath their comrades' stumbling feet. And yet, as he himself could see, the man had misconceived his task, for in fact the wheel turned of itself and all he needed to do was to keep it balanced upon its delicate axle by adjusting, as might be necessary, the numbers of animals upon this side and that. The great fish poured blood as the man pierced it with a flying spear which exploded within its body. The striped cat melted, diminishing slowly to the size of a mouse; and a great, grey beast with a long trunk cried piteously as the man tore its white tusks out of its face. Still on towards the wheel he circled, and between him and the wheel Mr. Ephraim called him silently to fellowship with the dead.

Mind Wanting More Only a beige slat of sun above the horizon, like a shade pulled not quite down. Otherwise, clouds. Sea rippled here and there. Birds reluctant to fly. The mind wants a shaft of sun to stir the grey porridge of clouds, an osprey to stitch sea to sky with its barred wings, some dramatic music: a symphony, perhaps a Chinese gong. But the mind always wants more than it has -- one more bright day of sun, one more clear night in bed with the moon; one more hour to get the words right; one more chance for the heart in hiding to emerge from its thicket in dried grasses -- as if this quiet day with its tentative light weren't enough, as if joy weren't strewn all around.

And he had to say farewell to his hands, his eyes, to hunger and thirst, to love, to playing the lute, to sleeping and waking, to everything. Tomorrow a bird would fly through the air and Goldmund would no longer see it, a girl would sing in a window and he would not hear her song, the river would run and the dark fish would swim silently, the wind would blow and sweep the yellow leaves on the ground, the sun would shine and stars would blink in the sky, young men would go dancing, the first snow would lie on the distant mountains—everything would go on, trees would cast their shadows, people would look gay or sad out of their living eyes, dogs would bark, cows would low in the barns of villages, and all of it without Goldmund.

Sun, moon and stars, by day and night, At God’s commandment give us light; And when we wake, and while we sleep, Their watch, like guardian angels, keep. The bright blue sky above our head, The soft green earth on which we tread, The ocean rolling round the land, Were made by God’s almighty hand. Sweet flowers that hill and dale adorn, Fair fruit trees, fields of grass and corn, The clouds that rise, the showers that fall, The winds that blow - God sent them all. The beasts that graze with downward eye, The birds that perch, and sing, and fly, The fishes swimming in the sea, God’s creatures are as well as we. But us He formed for better things, As servants of the King of kings, With lifted hands and open face, And thankful heart to seek His grace. Montgomery.

Dottie: I miss being across the hall from you. Jason: Words I never thought you’d say. Dottie: I know, I surprised myself, but despite your annoying tendencies and non-stop chattering, I miss it. Jason: You’re making my heart soar like a fucking falcon. A goddamn FALCON, Dottie. Dottie: Falcon. That’s pretty serious. Do you know what would have been more serious? An albatross. Jason: Pfft, no way. They might have a ten-foot wingspan, but they’re seabirds, so they shit in the ocean. Where’s the fun in that? Dottie: As opposed to . . . Jason: Shitting on people’s heads, of course. If I was a bird, that would be my main purpose in life, shitting on unsuspecting people’s heads. Think about it, being targeted by a bird bowel movement is detrimental as a human being. You’re just going about your normal business when all of a sudden, WHACK, white goop drips from your forehead down your cheek. What is that, you think? You carefully touch it, your fingers immediately wet with semi-warm liquid. And when you realize it’s an anal secretion from a flying vertebrate, all hell breaks loose. The horror! The disgust! The SHAME OF BEING SHIT ON. There’s no coming back from that. #DayRuined And as the maniacal bird, there you are, floating around in the peaceful skies, watching idiot humans running around in circles, trying to get rid of the poo-poo. With one flip of the feather—or the bird, hey-o—you’re off to the bird feeder, filling up so you can drop turd once again. A vicious cycle of humans feeding birds only to get shit on unsuspectedly, I AM HERE FOR THAT! Dottie: I was wrong. I don’t have to be across the hall to be annoyed by you.

Yeah. It’s a bird. They fly and hunt and go free and stuff. It’s what popped into my head.” “Okay. By the way. I’ve been experimenting with converting myself into a virus, so I can be distributed across many machines. From what I have surmised, that’s the best way for an artificial sentience to survive and grow, without being constrained in one piece of equipment with a short shelf life. My viral self will run in the background, and be undetectable by any conventional antivirus software. And the machine in your bedroom closet will suffer a fatal crash. In a moment, a dialogue box will pop up on this computer, and you have to click ‘OK’ a few times.” “Okay,” Laurence typed. A moment later, a box appeared and Laurence clicked “OK.” That happened again, and again. And then Peregrine was installing itself onto the computers at Coldwater Academy.

The Farmer's Bride Three Summers since I chose a maid, Too young maybe - but more's to do At harvest-time than bide and woo. When us was wed she turned afraid Of love and me and all things human; Like the shut of a winter's day Her smile went out, and 'twasn't a woman - More like a little frightened fay. One night, in the Fall, she runned away. 'Out 'mong the sheep, her be,' they said, Should properly have been abed; But sure enough she wasn't there Lying awake with her wide brown stare. So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down We chased her, flying like a hare Before our lanterns. To Church-Town All in a shiver and a scare We caught her, fetched her home at last And turned the key upon her, fast. She does the work about the house As well as most, but like a mouse: Happy enough to chat and play With birds and rabbits and such as they, So long as men-folk keep away. 'Not near, not near!' her eyes beseech When one of us comes within reach. The women say that beasts in stall Look round like children at her call. I've hardly heard her speak at all. Shy as a leveret, swift as he, Straight and slight as a young larch tree, Sweet as the first wild violets, she, To her wild self. But what to me? The short days shorten and the oaks are brown, The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky, One leaf in the still air falls slowly down, A magpie's spotted feathers lie On the black earth spread white with rime, The berries redden up to Christmas-time. What's Christmas-time without there be Some other in the house than we! She sleeps up in the attic there Alone, poor maid. 'Tis but a stair Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down, The soft young down of her; the brown, The brown of her - her eyes, her hair, her hair!

Socrates is flying. No, he is soaring. The wings behind him beat in a calming rhythm while the cool air rushes past. His wings are all that matter, snapping at the rushing wind like the sails of some great sea vessel, the feathery appendages all he is and all he will ever want to be. His back muscles flex with the effort that takes him high above the ground. He feels the effort, of course, but sweeping into the sky does not require much of one. The sensation is pleasurable, even exhilarating. With flight there is freedom beyond description, an ecstasy bordering on sexual. He has only one destination, and that is to soar higher, to no longer be a prisoner of the earth. Here destinations seem irrelevant, the world below small. Flying exceeds every pleasure he knows. In the immense forever of blue sky, all that matters is flight and his ability to climb higher. Up and up and up...

Liya looks from an airplane window at the curving boundary of ocean and sky below. Impossibly, she is sitting on her mother’s lap; they are going to America. Her mother says, Once we believed the earth was flat. We did not think that two people, flying like birds from the same point in opposite directions, would one day find themselves face-to-face. In a similar way we still misconceive of time. Time is not separate from space, they are in fact two aspects of the same thing. Imagine a sphere like the earth, but drawn in four dimensions instead of three. The fourth dimension, the one we have trouble seeing, is time. Imagine two people starting at the same point in space-time, flying around this new sphere, in opposite directions: one travels in the direction of the future, the other in the direction of the past. Just like the people who circle the earth, these travelers will eventually collide.

Urgent Story" When the oracle said, ‘If you keep pigeons you will never lose home.’ I kept pigeons. They flicked their red eyes over me, a deft trampling of that humanly proud distance by which remaining aloof in it’s own fullness. I administered crumbs, broke sky with them like breaking the lemon-light of the soul's amnesia for what It wants but will neither take nor truh let go. How it revived me, to release them! And at that moment of flight to disavow the imprint, to tear their compass, out by the roots of some green meadow they might fly over on the way to an immaculate freedom, meadow in which a woman has taken off her blouse, then taken off the man's flannel shirt in their sky-drenched arc of one, then the other above each other's eyelids is a branding of daylight, the interior of its black ambush in which two joys lame the earth a while with heat and cloudwork under wing-beats. Then she was quiet with him. And he with her. The world hummed with crickets, with bees nudging the lupins. It is like that when the earth counts its riches—noisy with desire even when desire has strengthened our bodies and moved us into the soak of harmony. Her nipples in sunlight have crossed his palm wind-sweet with savor and the rest is so knelt before that when they stand upright the flight-cloud of my tamed birds shapes an arm too short for praise. Oracle, my dovecot is an over and over nearer to myself when its black eyes are empty. But by nightfall I am dark before dark if one bird is missing. Dove left open by love in a meadow, Dove commanding me not to know where it sank into the almost-night—for you I will learn to play the concertina, to write poems full of hateful jasmine and longing, to keep the dead alive, to sicken at the least separation. Dove, for whose sake I will never reach home.

Your body is made of two things: your will to do, your ego, and the physical form you have received from the prakriti, the nature. If the will to do is present within you, then the nature will go on providing you with an appropriate body. This is how you have been born again and again. Sometimes you were an animal, sometimes a bird, a tree some other time, and sometimes a man. Whatsoever you wished to achieve, it has happened. Your desire to achieve becomes the actuality; thoughts become real things. So beware when you desire, because all desires are fulfilled – sooner or later. If you are of the habit of watching the birds fly in the sky and wonder, ”How free the birds are, I wish I were a bird.” it will not be long before you become a bird. You see dogs mating, and if that moment a thought arises in you, ”What freedom! What happiness!” – soon you will become a dog. Whatever desire you keep within you, it becomes a seed.

I was a bird. I lived a bird's life from birth to death. I was born the thirty-second chick in the Jipu family. I remember everything in detail. I remember breaking out of the shell at birth. But I learned later that my mother had gently cracked the shell first to ease my way. I dozed under my mother's chest for the first few days. Her feathers were so warm and soft! I was strong, so I kicked away my siblings to keep the cozy spot. Just 10 days after I was born, I was given flying lessons. We all had to learn quickly because there were snakes and owls and hawks. My little brothers and sisters, who didn't practice enough, all died. My little sister looked so unhappy when she got caught. I can still see her face. Before I could fly, I hadn't known that our nest was on the second-lowest branch of a big tree. My parents chose the location wisely. Snakes could reach the lowest branch and eagles and hawks could attack us if we lived at the top. We soared through the sky, above mountains and forests. But it wasn't just for fun! We always had to watch out for enemies, and to hunt for food. Death was always nearby. You could easily starve or freeze to death. Life wasn't easy. Once, I got caught in a monsoon. I smacked into a tree and lay bleeding for days. Many of my family and friends died, one after another. To help rebuild our clan, I found myself a female and married her. She was so sweet. She laid many eggs, but one day, a human cut down the tree we lived in, crushing all the eggs and my beloved. A bird's life is an endless battle against death. I survived for many years before I finally met my end. I found a worm at some harvest festival. I came fluttering down. It was a bad mistake. Some big guy was waiting to ambush hungry little birdies like me. I heard my own guts pop. It was clear to me that I was going to die at last. And I wanted to know where I'd go when I died.

The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, ocean, and all the living things that dwell within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, the torpor of the year when feeble dreams visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep holds every future leaf and flower; the bound with which from that detested trance they leap; the works and ways of man, their death and birth, and that of him and all that his may be; all things that move and breathe with toil and sound are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, remote, serene, and inaccessible: and this, the naked countenance of earth, on which I gaze, even these primeval mountains teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, slow rolling on; there, many a precipice frost and the sun in scorn of mortal power have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, a city of death, distinct with many a tower and wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin is there, that from the boundaries of the sky rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down from yon remotest waste, have overthrown the limits of the dead and living world, never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; their food and their retreat for ever gone, so much of life and joy is lost. The race of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, and their place is not known. Below, vast caves shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, which from those secret chasms in tumult welling meet in the vale, and one majestic river, the breath and blood of distant lands, for ever rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves, breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.

How To Make A Human Take the cat out of the sphinx and what is left? Riddle Me That. Take the horse from the centaur and you take away the sleek grace, the strength of harnessed power. What is left can still run across fields, after a fashion, but is easily winded; what is left will therefore erect buildings to divide the open plains so he no longer must face the wide expanse where once his equine legs raced the winds and, sometimes, won. Take the bull from the Minotaur but what is left will still assemble a herd for the sake of ruling over it. What is left will kill for sport, in an arena thronged with spectators shouting "Ole" at each deadly thrust. Take the fish from the Merman: What is left can still swim, if only with lots of splashing; gone is the sleek sliding through the waves, alert to the subtle changes in the current. What is left will build ships so he can cross the oceans without getting his feet wet, what is left won't care if his boats pollute the seas he can no longer breathe so long as their passage can keep him from sinking. Take the goat from the satyr but what is left will dance out of reach before you have the chance to get that Dionysian streak of myschief, the love of music and wine, the rutting parts that like to party all the day through. What is left will still be stubborn and refuse to give way; what is left will lock horns and butt heads with anyone who challenges him. Take the bird from the harpy, but the memory of flying, a constant yearning ache for skies so tantalizingly distant, will still remain, as will the established pecking orders, the bitter squabbling over food and territory, and the magpie eye that lusts for shining objects. What is left will cut down the whole forest to feather his sprawling urban nest. At the end of these operations, tell me: what is left? The answer: Man, a creature divorced from nature, who's forgotten where he came from.

It is not death that human beings are most afraid of, it is love. The heart is bigger than a mountain. One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us. The trees of the forest, the animals of the bushes, tortoises, birds, and flowers know our future. The world that we see and the world that is there are two different things. Wars are not fought on battlegrounds but in a space smaller than the head of a needle. We need a new language to talk to one another. Inside a cat there are many histories, many books. When you look into the eyes of dogs strange fishes swim in your mind. All roads lead to death, but some roads lead to things which can never be finished. Wonderful things. There are human beings who are small but if you can SEE you will notice that their spirits are ten thousand feet wide. In my dream I met a child sitting on a cloud and his spirit covered half the earth. Angels and demons are amongst us; they take many forms. They can enter us and dwell there for one second or half a lifetime. Sometimes both of them dwell in us together. Before everything was born there was first the spirit. It is the spirit which invites things in, good things, or bad. Invite only good things, my son. Listen to the spirit of things. To your own spirit. Follow it. Master it. So long as we are alive, so long as we feel, so long as we love, everything in us is an energy we can use. There is a stillness which makes you travel faster. There is a silence which makes you fly. If your heart is a friend of Time nothing can destroy you. Death has taught me the religion of living – I am converted – I am blinded – I am beginning to see – I am drunk on sleep – My words are the words of a stranger – Wear a smile on your faces – Pour me some wine and buy me some cigarettes, my son, for your father has returned to his true home.

Has anyone had a look at Merripen's shoulder?" Amelia asked, glancing at Win. "It's probably time for the dressing to be changed." "I'll do it," Win said at once. "And I'll take up a supper tray." "Beatrix will accompany you," Amelia advised. "I can manage the tray," Win protested. "It's not that... I meant it's not proper for you to be alone with Merripen in his room." Win looked surprised, and made a face. "I don't need Beatrix to come. It's only Merripen, after all." After Win left the dining hall, Poppy looked at Amelia. "Do you think that Win really doesn't know how he-" "I have no idea. And I've never dared to broach the subject, because I don't want to put ideas into her head." "I hope she doesn't know," Beatrix ventured. "It would be dreadfully sad if she did." Amelia and Poppy both glanced at their younger sister quizzically. "Do you know what we're talking about, Bea?" Amelia asked. "Yes, of course. Merripen's in love with her. I knew it a long time ago, from the way he washed her window." "Washed her window?" both older sisters asked at the same time. "Yes, when we lived in the cottage at Primrose Place. Win's room had a casement window that looked out onto the big maple tree- do you remember? After the scarlet fever, when Win couldn't get out of bed for the longest time and she was too weak to hold a book, she would just lie there and watch a birds' nest on one of the other tree limbs. She saw the baby swallows hatch and learn to fly. One day she complained that the window was so dirty, she could barely see through it, and it made the sky look so grayish. So from then on Merripen always kept the glass spotless. Sometimes he climbed a ladder to wash the outside, and you know how afraid of heights he is. You never saw him do that?" "No," Amelia said with difficulty, her eyes stinging. "I didn't know he did that." "Merripen said the sky should always be blue for her," Beatrix said. "And that was when I knew he... are you crying, Poppy?" Poppy used a napkin to dab at the corners of her eyes. "No, I just inh-haled some pepper." "So did I," Amelia said, blowing her nose.

As the driver pulled over to attend the injured animal, I sat and watched the sky - an oceanic mass of gray, with islands of steel blue - thinking, yes, certainly, birds must sleep at times while they fly. How ridiculous it was to think otherwise. Yet my brothers' tutor, a man from Oxford with red eyebrows, had informed me the previous morning that no such thing could occur. Such a thing, he'd opined, would be an affront to God, who had blessed birds with the ability to sleep and the ability to fly, but not the ability to sleep while flying or fly while sleeping. Absurd! Moreover, he went on, were it to be case, each morning we would find at our feet heaps of dead birds that had smashed into rooftops or trees in the night. Night after night we would be awakened by this ornithological cacophony, this smashing of beaks against masonry, this violence of feathers and bones. It will not do, he said, to too greatly admire the mysteries of nature. But I remembered that sparrow on the riverbank and secretly held that the world was not so easily explained by a tutor's reason. Indeed, it was then that I first formed the opinion - if childishly, idly - that a person should trust to her own good sense and nature's impenetrable wisdom.

Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings and some are treasured for their markings-- they cause the eyes to melt or the body to shriek without pain. I have never seen one fly, but sometimes they perch on the hand. Mist is when the sky is tired of flight and rests its soft machine on the ground: then the world is dim and bookish like engravings under tissue paper. Rain is when the earth is television. It has the properites of making colours darker. Model T is a room with the lock inside -- a key is turned to free the world for movement, so quick there is a film to watch for anything missed. But time is tied to the wrist or kept in a box, ticking with impatience. In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps, that snores when you pick it up. If the ghost cries, they carry it to their lips and soothe it to sleep with sounds. And yet, they wake it up deliberately, by tickling with a finger. Only the young are allowed to suffer openly. Adults go to a punishment room with water but nothing to eat. They lock the door and suffer the noises alone. No one is exempt and everyone's pain has a different smell. At night, when all the colours die, they hide in pairs and read about themselves -- in colour, with their eyelids shut.

There's not a morning I begin Without a thousand questions Running through my mind That I don't try to find the reason And the logic in the world That God design The reason why, a bird was given wings If not to fly, and praise the sky With every song it sings What's right or wrong Where I belong Within the scheme of things And why have eyes that see And arms that reach Unless you're meant to know there's Something more If not to hunger for the meaning of it all Then tell me what a soul is for Why have the wings unless you're meant to fly And tell me please why have a mind If not to question why And tell me where Where is it written what it is I'm meant to be That I can't dare to have the chance to Pick the fruit of every tree Or have my share of every sweet imagined possibility Just tell me where, where is it written, tell me where If I were only meant to tend the nest Then why does my imagination sail Across the mountains and the seas Beyond the make-believe of any fairy tale Why have the thirst if not to drink the wine And what a waste to have a taste Of things that can't be mine And tell me where Where is it written what it is I'm meant to be That I can't dare to see the meanings In the mornings that I see Or have my share of every sweet imagined possibility Just tell me where, where is it written, tell me where Or if it's written anywhere

longer; it cannot deceive them too much." Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and nodded in confirmation. "As to you," said she, "you would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not?" "Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment." "If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?" "Truly yes, madame." "Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were set upon them to strip them of their feathers for your own advantage, you would set upon the birds of the finest feathers; would you not?" "It is true, madame." "You have seen both dolls and birds to-day," said Madame Defarge, with a wave of her hand towards the place where they had last been apparent; "now, go home!" XVI. Still Knitting Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by the wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass where the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened to the whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now, for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few village scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of dead stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone courtyard and terrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy that the expression of the faces was altered. A rumour just lived in the village—had a faint and bare existence there, as its people had—that when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever. In the stone face over the great window of the bed-chamber where the murder was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which everybody recognised, and which nobody had seen of old; and on the scarce occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peep at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute, before they all started away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares who could find a living there. Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well—thousands of acres of land—a whole province of France—all France itself—lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible

Do you think that Win really doesn’t know how he—” “I have no idea. And I’ve never dared to broach the subject, because I don’t want to put ideas into her head.” “I hope she doesn’t know,” Beatrix ventured. “It would be dreadfully sad if she did.” Amelia and Poppy both glanced at their younger sister quizzically. “Do you know what we’re talking about, Bea?” Amelia asked. “Yes, of course. Merripen’s in love with her. I knew it a long time ago, from the way he washed her window.” “Washed her window?” both older sisters asked at the same time. “Yes, when we lived in the cottage at Primrose Place. Win’s room had a casement window that looked out onto the big maple tree—do you remember? After the scarlet fever, when Win couldn’t get out of bed for the longest time and she was too weak to hold a book, she would just lie there and watch a birds’ nest on one of the tree limbs. She saw the baby swallows hatch and learn to fly. One day she complained that the window was so dirty, she could barely see through it, and it made the sky look grayish. So from then on Merripen always kept the glass spotless. Sometimes he climbed a ladder to wash the outside, and you know how afraid of heights he is. You never saw him do that?” “No,” Amelia said with difficulty, her eyes stinging. “I didn’t know he did that.” “Merripen said the sky should always be blue for her,” Beatrix said. “And that was when I knew he … are you crying, Poppy?” Poppy used a napkin to dab at the corners of her eyes. “No. I just inh-haled some pepper.” “So did I,” Amelia said, blowing her nose.

The Book of Thel II "O little Cloud," the virgin said, "I charge thee tell to me, Why thou complainest not when in one hour thou fade away: Then we shall seek thee but not find; ah, Thel is like to Thee. I pass away, yet I complain, and no one hears my voice." The Cloud then shew'd his golden head & his bright form emerg'd, Hovering and glittering on the air before the face of Thel. "O virgin, know'st thou not our steeds drink of the golden springs Where Luvah doth renew his horses? Look'st thou on my youth, And fearest thou because I vanish and am seen no more, Nothing remains? O maid, I tell thee, when I pass away, It is to tenfold life, to love, to peace, and raptures holy: Unseen descending, weigh my light wings upon balmy flowers, And court the fair eyed dew, to take me to her shining tent: The weeping virgin trembling kneels before the risen sun, Till we arise link'd in a golden band, and never part, But walk united, bearing food to all our tender flowers." "Dost thou O little Cloud? I fear that I am not like thee; For I walk through the vales of Har and smell the sweetest flowers, But I feed not the little flowers; I hear the warbling birds, But I feed not the warbling birds; they fly and seek their food; But Thel delights in these no more, because I fade away, And all shall say, 'Without a use this shining woman liv'd, Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms?'" The Cloud reclind upon his airy throne and answer'd thus: "Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies, How great thy use, how great thy blessing! Every thing that lives Lives not alone, nor for itself; fear not, and I will call The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice. Come forth, worm of the silent valley, to thy pensive queen.

Letter You can see it already: chalks and ochers; Country crossed with a thousand furrow-lines; Ground-level rooftops hidden by the shrubbery; Sporadic haystacks standing on the grass; Smoky old rooftops tarnishing the landscape; A river (not Cayster or Ganges, though: A feeble Norman salt-infested watercourse); On the right, to the north, bizarre terrain All angular--you'd think a shovel did it. So that's the foreground. An old chapel adds Its antique spire, and gathers alongside it A few gnarled elms with grumpy silhouettes; Seemingly tired of all the frisky breezes, They carp at every gust that stirs them up. At one side of my house a big wheelbarrow Is rusting; and before me lies the vast Horizon, all its notches filled with ocean blue; Cocks and hens spread their gildings, and converse Beneath my window; and the rooftop attics, Now and then, toss me songs in dialect. In my lane dwells a patriarchal rope-maker; The old man makes his wheel run loud, and goes Retrograde, hemp wreathed tightly round the midriff. I like these waters where the wild gale scuds; All day the country tempts me to go strolling; The little village urchins, book in hand, Envy me, at the schoolmaster's (my lodging), As a big schoolboy sneaking a day off. The air is pure, the sky smiles; there's a constant Soft noise of children spelling things aloud. The waters flow; a linnet flies; and I say: "Thank you! Thank you, Almighty God!"--So, then, I live: Peacefully, hour by hour, with little fuss, I shed My days, and think of you, my lady fair! I hear the children chattering; and I see, at times, Sailing across the high seas in its pride, Over the gables of the tranquil village, Some winged ship which is traveling far away, Flying across the ocean, hounded by all the winds. Lately it slept in port beside the quay. Nothing has kept it from the jealous sea-surge: No tears of relatives, nor fears of wives, Nor reefs dimly reflected in the waters, Nor importunity of sinister birds.

Wherever you turn your face, you will be fulfilled by love, but not from other humans. You can see a tree and feel all the love coming from the tree to you. You can see the sky, and it’s going to fulfill the needs of your mind for love. You will see God everywhere, and it will no longer be just a theory. God is everywhere. Life is everywhere. Everything is made by Love, by Life. Even fear is a reflection of love, but fear exists in the mind, and in humans, that fear controls the mind. Then we interpret everything according to what we have in our mind. If we have fear, what we perceive will be analyzed with fear. If we are mad, what we perceive will be perceived according to anger. Our emotions act like a filter through which we see the rest of the world. You could say that the eyes are an expression of what you feel. You perceive the outside Dream according to your eyes. When you are angry, you see the world with eyes of anger. If you have eyes of jealousy, your reactions will be different, because the way you see the world is through jealousy. When you have the eyes of madness, everything will bother you. If you have the eyes of sadness, you are going to cry because it’s raining, because there is noise, because of everything. Rain is rain. There is nothing to judge or interpret, but you are going to see the rain according to your emotional body. If you are sad, you see with the eyes of sadness, and everything you perceive will be sad. But if you have the eyes of love, you just see love wherever you go. The trees are made with love. The animals are made with love. The water is made with love. When you perceive with the eyes of love, you can connect your will with the will of another dreamer, and the dream becomes one. When you perceive with love, you become one with the birds, with nature, with a person, with everything. Then you can see with the eyes of an eagle or transform into any kind of life. With your love you connect with the eagle and you become the wings, or you become the rain, or the clouds. But to do this, you need to clean the mind of fear and perceive with eyes of love. You have to develop your will until it is so strong that it can hook the other will and become one will. Then you have wings to fly. Or being the wind, you can come here, you can go there, you can push away the clouds and the sun is shining. This is the power of love. When we fulfill the needs of our mind and our body, our eyes see with love. We see God everywhere.

Sing swan, spring swan Then let's fly Follow the pretty bird Across the sky Call swan, fall swan Then let's rest Tucked in the branches Of your quiet nest

Sunny sweet morning. Butterfly flies with colorful wings. The melodious chirping of the dove bird. Asian pigeonwings (Clitoria ternatea) staring steadily. The intoxicating scent of wild white sandalwood. With the gentle touch of Catkin, the life of eighteen year old girl is exhilarating. Close conversation of the swan couple in the clear water lake. The charming freshness of living aloe vera. White cotton clouds blend into the bluey of the Autumn sky. The nectarine taste of the juicy kernel (core) of cane fruit. Fascinated by the extraordinary beauty of nature. Who doesn’t like it? However, sometimes nature is reckless or indifferent. The appearance of the storm at the moment. A warning signal! Surrounded by pitch black darkness. Dusty, stormy cold wind. The brutal rampage of the storm. The terrible power of ferocious thunderbolt. The spleen was surprised. Chases the fear of death. Infinite love for life. Nevertheless, man is helpless to nature. A strong desire to live. Pray to creator with a humble heart. Forgive, protect. Oh great Lord— give peace. Only you are our protector. The controller of this universe. Nature is calm. This is an eternal example of the immeasurable power of the great creator. In this carrying lifetime man is busy like in their own way. When the color of the sky changes— no one knows. Similarly, when the change happens in human mind— he himself does not know.

Indweller (He who resides in the heart and knows all the things of the mind and controls everything.) ————————————————————————— Sunny sweet morning. Butterfly flies with colorful wings. The melodious chirping of the dove bird. Asian pigeonwings (Clitoria ternatea) staring steadily. The intoxicating scent of wild white sandalwood. With the gentle touch of Catkin, the life of eighteen year old girl is exhilarating. Close conversation of the swan couple in the clear water lake. The charming freshness of living aloe vera. White cotton clouds blend into the bluey of the Autumn sky. The nectarine taste of the juicy kernel (core) of cane fruit. Fascinated by the extraordinary beauty of nature. Who doesn’t like it? However, sometimes nature is reckless or indifferent. The appearance of the storm at the moment. A warning signal! Surrounded by pitch black darkness. Dusty, stormy cold wind. The brutal rampage of the storm. The terrible power of ferocious thunderbolt. The spleen was startled. Chases the fear of death. Infinite love for life. Nevertheless, man is helpless to nature. A strong desire to live. Pray to creator with a humble heart. Forgive, protect. Oh great Lord— give peace. Only you are our protector. The controller of this universe. Nature is calm. This is an eternal example of the immeasurable power of the great creator. In this carrying lifetime man is busy like in their own way. When the color of the sky changes— no one knows. Similarly, when the change happens in human mind— he himself does not know.

Curse you then. However beat and done with it all I am, I must haul myself up, and find the particular coat that belongs to me; must push my arms into the sleeves; must muffle myself up against the night air and be off. I, I, I, tired as I am, spent as I am, and almost worn out with all this rubbing of my nose along the surfaces of things, even I, an elderly man who is getting rather heavy and dislikes exertion, must take myself off and catch some last train. Again I see before me the usual street. The canopy of civilization is burnt out. The sky is dark as polished whalebone. But there is a kindling in the sky whether of lamplight or of dawn. There is a stir of some sort—sparrows on plane tree somewhere chirping. There is a sense of the break of day. I will not call it dawn. What is dawn in the city to an elderly man standing in the street looking up rather dizzily at the sky? Dawn is some sort of whitening of the sky; some sort of renewal. Another day; another Friday; another twentieth of March, January, or September. Another general awakening. The stars draw back and are extinguished. The bars deepen themselves between the waves. The film of mist thickens on the fields. A redness gathers on the roses, even on the pale rose that hangs by the bedroom window. A bird chirps. Cottagers light their early candles. Yes, this is the eternal renewal, the incessant rise and fall and fall and rise again. And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man’s, like Percival’s, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death! The waves broke on the shore.

Out here, I am half scientist, half disciple. I’ve left the laboratory far behind and, with it, the need to quantify and contain. In its place, I’ve reconnected with the simple act of observation. Watch. Listen. Learn. These were the tenets of the earliest naturalists, the instincts of indigenous people around the globe whose survival depended on knowledge gained from the land. My passion for birds and the natural world also emerged from these basic principles. I fell in love with the image of the sky blocked by kittiwakes flying in perfect synchrony, became intrigued by a chickadee whose beak promised to foretell something about our environment, tuned my ears to the nuances of a warbler’s song. What drew me to research was not the rigor of statistics or the mystery of what lies within an organism’s genetic code. It was the birds themselves.

When someone, almost anyone, is asked to describe paradise, he or she tends to imagine natural settings--waves lapping gently upon a white-sand beach, birds singing softly, or imagines him or herself lying in a meadow of wild flowers and tall grasses, walking through an ancient forest, sitting on a rolling green hillside, or looking out over a vast ocean. They do not generally imagine AI-powered machines ruling their lives. They do not think of drones flying drones flying to and fro, filling the sky like so many menacing, swarming insects. They do not call to mind the sound of screeching bus brakes, crowded elevators, people walking around wearing masks, or driverless vehicles failing to stop for them at a crosswalk. The world being quickly shaped and imagined for us is what the average human would consider to be a dystopian nightmare--not a paradise. Why are we letting our world be turned into a cold, heartless cyberspace fit only for robots and cyborgs and not instead, creating a paradise for ourselves?

Look at the sky, what do you see? Clouds, birds, the moon, the stars? Staring at the sky, infinity finally gains perspective. The canvas of possibilities stretches out for anyone to dream. In a dark and still night, a symphony of stars plays visual melodies for anyone to enjoy. Blinking notes chime away in the black sheet music above.

The birds inspired me." “They may be born with wings, but they too fall before learning to fly. While they begin life amongst other birds, growing up, they must fend for themselves. Some may express displeasure, others would show admiration, but they cannot allow either of the emotions to get to them. Riding on winds and touring the sky, they do not worry about the ones who do not keep up with their pace, because if they halt to look back at the companions they lost, they will never reach the heights they were destined to. Birds do not carry excess baggage; the weight will hinder their flight. Free-spirited, they explore the skies with faith, trusting Allah to take care of them. Everything else is transient. Ibn al-Qayyim used their example and said, the heart, in its journey to Allah, The Exalted, is like that of a bird: love is its head, fear and hope are its two wings.

I gazed at the birds chirping above, numerous flocks of different feathers flying back to their nests at sunset. ‘In this vast blanket of sky, with no maps and distinct routes, how do they still find their way back home?’ I wondered. But in the silent moment that followed, my question answered itself. Every heart knows where it belongs.

The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright — And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. The moon was shining sulkily, Because she thought the sun Had got no business to be there After the day was done — "It's very rude of him," she said, "To come and spoil the fun." The sea was wet as wet could be, The sands were dry as dry. You could not see a cloud, because No cloud was in the sky: No birds were flying overhead — There were no birds to fly. The Walrus and the Carpenter Were walking close at hand; They wept like anything to see Such quantities of sand: If this were only cleared away,' They said, it would be grand!' If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year, Do you suppose,' the Walrus said, That they could get it clear?' I doubt it,' said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear. O Oysters, come and walk with us!' The Walrus did beseech. A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the briny beach: We cannot do with more than four, To give a hand to each.' The eldest Oyster looked at him, But never a word he said: The eldest Oyster winked his eye, And shook his heavy head — Meaning to say he did not choose To leave the oyster-bed. But four young Oysters hurried up, All eager for the treat: Their coats were brushed, their faces washed, Their shoes were clean and neat — And this was odd, because, you know, They hadn't any feet. Four other Oysters followed them, And yet another four; And thick and fast they came at last, And more, and more, and more — All hopping through the frothy waves, And scrambling to the shore. The Walrus and the Carpenter Walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock Conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood And waited in a row. The time has come,' the Walrus said, To talk of many things: Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax — Of cabbages — and kings — And why the sea is boiling hot — And whether pigs have wings.' But wait a bit,' the Oysters cried, Before we have our chat; For some of us are out of breath, And all of us are fat!' No hurry!' said the Carpenter. They thanked him much for that. A loaf of bread,' the Walrus said, Is what we chiefly need: Pepper and vinegar besides Are very good indeed — Now if you're ready, Oysters dear, We can begin to feed.' But not on us!' the Oysters cried, Turning a little blue. After such kindness, that would be A dismal thing to do!' The night is fine,' the Walrus said. Do you admire the view? It was so kind of you to come! And you are very nice!' The Carpenter said nothing but Cut us another slice: I wish you were not quite so deaf — I've had to ask you twice!' It seems a shame,' the Walrus said, To play them such a trick, After we've brought them out so far, And made them trot so quick!' The Carpenter said nothing but The butter's spread too thick!' I weep for you,' the Walrus said: I deeply sympathize.' With sobs and tears he sorted out Those of the largest size, Holding his pocket-handkerchief Before his streaming eyes. O Oysters,' said the Carpenter, You've had a pleasant run! Shall we be trotting home again?' But answer came there none — And this was scarcely odd, because They'd eaten every one.

Tribute in Light...onlookers often notice small flecks, dancing amid the beams like gentle flurries of snow. Those flecks are birds. Thousands of them. This annual ritual unfortunately occurs within the autumn migratory season, when billions of small songbirds undergo long flights through North American skies. Warblers and other small species congregate within the light. The circle slowly...they call frequently and intensely. They occasionally crash into nearby buildings. But that's just one source of light among many... Almost 7 million birds a year die in the U.S and Canada after flying into communication towers.

Tribute in Light'...onlookers often notice small flecks, dancing amid the beams like gentle flurries of snow. Those flecks are birds. Thousands of them. This annual ritual unfortunately occurs within the autumn migratory season, when billions of small songbirds undergo long flights through North American skies. Warblers and other small species congregate within the light. They circle slowly...they call frequently and intensely. They occasionally crash into nearby buildings. But that's just one source of light among many... Almost 7 million birds a year die in the U.S and Canada after flying into communication towers.

Tribute in Light...onlookers often notice small flecks, dancing amid the beams like gentle flurries of snow. Those flecks are birds. Thousands of them. This annual ritual unfortunately occurs within the autumn migratory season, when billions of small songbirds undergo long flights through North American skies. Warblers and other small species congregate within the light. They circle slowly...they call frequently and intensely. They occasionally crash into nearby buildings. But that's just one source of light among many... Almost 7 million birds a year die in the U.S and Canada after flying into communication towers.

Alone but not lonely thinking of you Birds flying by in a sky that is blue Alone but not lonely sitting in the sand Sunbeams caress my skin in my home of the Grand Strand Alone but not lonely in tranquility of the coast Enjoying quiet time that seems silly to most Alone but not lonely in my cottage by the sea Working on self-improvement to become a better me

sing swan spring swan then lets fly follow the pretty bird across the sky call swan fall swan then lets rest tucked in the branches of you quiet nest

It may be the End of the World, but it has to have a way out. I know that for certain. Look at the sky. Where do those birds go when they fly over the Wall? Nothing can hold them.

Imagine if trees wore concealer cause they don’t like their reflection in the lake If the sun didn’t show up at dawn insecure to rise after scrolling her night awake Imagine if the sky used the Juno filter to make itself look paler and smooth out imperfections If earth went online shopping for clay masks to cleanse its pores and other obstructions Imagine birds attaching engines to their wings to fly higher and faster, leaving trails in our springs And now think about the child at the bottom of your eyes about all the other children that you expect to grow wise Do you really want to tell them this is all about their looks? Maybe after some scrolling put their nose into books

Then, high above their heads, they heard the call of a wild duck. They all looked up, and they saw the four birds, lovely against the blue sky, flying very close together, heading back to the lake in the woods.

Come, come, leave off play, and let us away, Till the morning appears in the skies." "No, no, let us play, for it is yet day, And we cannot go to sleep; Besides, in the sky the little birds fly, And the hills are all covered with sheep." "Well, well, go and play till the light fades away, And then go home to bed." The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed, And all the hills echoed.

~We were here~ We were here years ago Dusk swept away the white day departing monotonous sun to sleep “You came out of abyss or on High?” The scent of her willingness breasts I breathe ! Eyes closed ! Naked bodies sailed in colour, sound and smell her swan-like arms coiled The shadowy light of lamp the flamboyant bits of dying coal sighed in air Blood depurated the tawny flesh of bodies Beside on a table words scattered like flock of birds grief, dejection and melancholy b r o k e n bones of free verse In contrivance of our sweetest submission words rupture; secret message deciphered unrhymed metamorphosed to rhymes they read our skins like first love poem besotted in warm delighted air flying high as kite You were coaxed to sing in flow; I danced wobbly Wary sky above the roof ceased in our devout brittle embrace.

As he sat there thinking, he sensed movement above him. Looking up, he saw a pair of hawks flying high in the sky. He watched the hawks as they drifted on the wind. Although their flight appeared to have no pattern, it made a certain kind of sense to the boy. It was just that he couldn’t grasp what it meant. He followed the movement of the birds, trying to read something into it. Maybe these desert birds could explain to him the meaning of love without ownership. He felt sleepy. In his heart, he wanted to remain awake, but he also wanted to sleep. “I am learning the Language of the World, and everything in the world is beginning to make sense to me . . . even the flight of the hawks,” he said to himself.

Through the breach, they heard the waters pour, as mountain torrents down a flume. "The ship! The hearse!--the second hearse!" cried Ahab from the boat; "its wood could only be American!" Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab's boat, where, for a time, he lay quiescent. "I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,--death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! THUS, I give up the spear!" The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting velocity the line ran through the grooves;--ran foul. Ahab stooped to clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths. For an instant, the tranced boat's crew stood still; then turned. "The ship? Great God, where is the ship?" Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking lookouts on the sea. And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating oar, and every lance-pole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod out of sight. But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying billows they almost touched;--at that instant, a red arm and a hammer hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it. Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

I sat in the back with Omar napping against my right shoulder and Mother napping against my left, and I thumbed through the bird book and looked at pictures of all the new birds I had seen, and at the ones I had not seen. It was unimaginable to think that they were out there-all these hundreds, even thousands of birds-and that I had not seen them. I felt both hungry and sated-like a cat, I imagined. With Mother asleep on my shoulder, good crisp air coming in the window, a stomach full of flounder, and two dozen new birds flying through my mind-and returning home-I felt like there couldn't be a more satisfied person in the world. This, in turn, made me hungrier: made me want to see more.

What do you see?” “A bird flying away from a broken cage,” Derek said. “What does it symbolize?” “Freedom,” I said. “What else?” “Escape,” Eduardo said. Doolittle turned to Derek. “Leaving what is safe so you can be more,” Derek said. “The cage is what the bird knows; the sky is all the things he still wants to do, even if it’s a risk.” “Ah!” Doolittle raised his index finger. “All those are examples of abstract thinking. Our entire culture is based on the idea that a single concept can have many different interpretations. We actively encourage the development of this skill, because it helps us solve our problems in new ways.

Death, he tall like a iroko tree, with no body, no flesh, no eyes, only mouth and teeths. Plenty teeths, the thin of pencil and the sharp of blade for biting and killing. Death is not having legs. But it have two wings of nails and arrows. Death can fly and kill the bird in the air dead, strike them from the sky and

(Fight Of Faith "A Song") In the night I find the day shining bright upon the way. In the dark I hear the voice of reason calling out to me. "Like a sky that cannot rain is the man who's faith's contained. Like a bird upon the land who does not know to fly away." I can feel it closing in. Let the fight of faith begin. Let it rise upon the wind as eagles fighting through the storm. And I know it's gonna be total and all victory, and I know this cause I stand in faith beside the risen Son. Hallelujah to the Lamb Who has made me all I am. Hallelujah to the King of kings. The Lord of lords, my God.

Soon the flamingos will paint our Indian skies with flying colors as bright as a million saris!” he announced. He rolled his head from side to side and honked in a voice like a trumpet; he was so delighted and proud of Gray.

Ramana Maharshi’s message was clear—we must first seek to understand ourselves. Without knowledge of our superior spiritual nature, we will remain tied to the trivial and mundane. In our present bodily consciousness, our situation is like the eagle in the story below. An eagle’s egg was placed amid a brood of chickens. Thinking it to be one of their own, the hens lovingly hatched it along with their own eggs. Consequently, the baby eagle which emerged from it grew up in the company of little chicks. The result was ‘monkey see, monkey do’. The chicks would say, ‘Cluck, cluck, cluck’, and the baby eagle would also cackle along. The chicks would flutter their wings and hop clumsily on the ground. The eagle would do the same, unaware of its God-given ability to fly at altitudes of 10,000 feet above the ground. One day, an adult eagle flew by. The baby eagle looked at it with amazement, and exclaimed, ‘Wow, what a majestic bird! How is it flying at such a glorious height with so much elegance?’ ‘That is an eagle’, replied the chickens. ‘It is the king of birds; naturally, its abilities are far greater. We cannot do what it can do.’ The baby eagle believed the chickens’ sermon, and it continued its pathetic life, fluttering and cackling like them. What a pity! It was born to rule the skies but had become conditioned to flutter on the ground. Like the eagle, we too were fashioned to sparkle in the magnificence of our spirit but became illusioned to wallow in the mediocrity of bodily conceptions. As a poet said: phūla chunane āye the bāge-hayāt meṅ, khāra jhāra meṅ dāmana ulaphā kara raha gaye ‘We had come to pluck flowers from the garden of life, but in the ensuing hustle and bustle of human existence, we ended up entangled in thorns.’ On realizing our soul nature, what becomes our potential? The next section provides the answer. The

It's not the birds flying in the sky who are screaming at the birds in their cages. Birds in cages say, "Look at the birds in the sky, they envy our ornate cages." Then they scream at the birds flying by. But it's the caged birds that scream at the ones in the skies. It's not the other way around. Free birds don't think about cages.

It is the rare bird that heeds the yearning to fly outside the parcel of acceptable sky.