Peacock Bird Quotes

My father was a vulture. My mother was a magpie. My oldest brother is a crow. My sister, a sparrow. I have never really been a bird." Lila resisted the urge to say he might have been a peacock. It didn't seem the time.

Maggie threw her head back and laughed. 'So you're going to try...what? Birds of a Feather?' she quested. 'Of course not,' Kat said. 'Everyone knows the French government banned the importation of peacocks in 1987.

The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail.

Fireflies out on a warm summer's night, seeing the urgent, flashing, yellow-white phosphorescence below them, go crazy with desire; moths cast to the winds an enchantment potion that draws the opposite sex, wings beating hurriedly, from kilometers away; peacocks display a devastating corona of blue and green and the peahens are all aflutter; competing pollen grains extrude tiny tubes that race each other down the female flower's orifice to the waiting egg below; luminescent squid present rhapsodic light shows, altering the pattern, brightness and color radiated from their heads, tentacles, and eyeballs; a tapeworm diligently lays a hundred thousand fertilized eggs in a single day; a great whale rumbles through the ocean depths uttering plaintive cries that are understood hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, where another lonely behemoth is attentively listening; bacteria sidle up to one another and merge; cicadas chorus in a collective serenade of love; honeybee couples soar on matrimonial flights from which only one partner returns; male fish spray their spunk over a slimy clutch of eggs laid by God-knows-who; dogs, out cruising, sniff each other's nether parts, seeking erotic stimuli; flowers exude sultry perfumes and decorate their petals with garish ultraviolet advertisements for passing insects, birds, and bats; and men and women sing, dance, dress, adorn, paint, posture, self-mutilate, demand, coerce, dissemble, plead, succumb, and risk their lives. To say that love makes the world go around is to go too far. The Earth spins because it did so as it was formed and there has been nothing to stop it since. But the nearly maniacal devotion to sex and love by most of the plants, animals, and microbes with which we are familiar is a pervasive and striking aspect of life on Earth. It cries out for explanation. What is all this in aid of? What is the torrent of passion and obsession about? Why will organisms go without sleep, without food, gladly put themselves in mortal danger for sex? ... For more than half the history of life on Earth organisms seem to have done perfectly well without it. What good is sex?... Through 4 billion years of natural selection, instructions have been honed and fine-tuned...sequences of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts, manuals written out in the alphabet of life in competition with other similar manuals published by other firms. The organisms become the means through which the instructions flow and copy themselves, by which new instructions are tried out, on which selection operates. 'The hen,' said Samuel Butler, 'is the egg's way of making another egg.' It is on this level that we must understand what sex is for. ... The sockeye salmon exhaust themselves swimming up the mighty Columbia River to spawn, heroically hurdling cataracts, in a single-minded effort that works to propagate their DNA sequences into future generation. The moment their work is done, they fall to pieces. Scales flake off, fins drop, and soon--often within hours of spawning--they are dead and becoming distinctly aromatic. They've served their purpose. Nature is unsentimental. Death is built in.

My heart is like a singing bird Whose nest is in a water'd shoot; My heart is like an apple-tree Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit; My heart is like a rainbow shell That paddles in a halcyon sea; My heart is gladder than all these, Because my love is come to me. Raise me a daïs of silk and down; Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates, And peacocks with a hundred eyes; Work it in gold and silver grapes, In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys; Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me.

L'union libre [Freedom of Love]" My wife with the hair of a wood fire With the thoughts of heat lightning With the waist of an hourglass With the waist of an otter in the teeth of a tiger My wife with the lips of a cockade and of a bunch of stars of the last magnitude With the teeth of tracks of white mice on the white earth With the tongue of rubbed amber and glass My wife with the tongue of a stabbed host With the tongue of a doll that opens and closes its eyes With the tongue of an unbelievable stone My wife with the eyelashes of strokes of a child's writing With brows of the edge of a swallow's nest My wife with the brow of slates of a hothouse roof And of steam on the panes My wife with shoulders of champagne And of a fountain with dolphin-heads beneath the ice My wife with wrists of matches My wife with fingers of luck and ace of hearts With fingers of mown hay My wife with armpits of marten and of beechnut And of Midsummer Night Of privet and of an angelfish nest With arms of seafoam and of riverlocks And of a mingling of the wheat and the mill My wife with legs of flares With the movements of clockwork and despair My wife with calves of eldertree pith My wife with feet of initials With feet of rings of keys and Java sparrows drinking My wife with a neck of unpearled barley My wife with a throat of the valley of gold Of a tryst in the very bed of the torrent With breasts of night My wife with breasts of a marine molehill My wife with breasts of the ruby's crucible With breasts of the rose's spectre beneath the dew My wife with the belly of an unfolding of the fan of days With the belly of a gigantic claw My wife with the back of a bird fleeing vertically With a back of quicksilver With a back of light With a nape of rolled stone and wet chalk And of the drop of a glass where one has just been drinking My wife with hips of a skiff With hips of a chandelier and of arrow-feathers And of shafts of white peacock plumes Of an insensible pendulum My wife with buttocks of sandstone and asbestos My wife with buttocks of swans' backs My wife with buttocks of spring With the sex of an iris My wife with the sex of a mining-placer and of a platypus My wife with a sex of seaweed and ancient sweetmeat My wife with a sex of mirror My wife with eyes full of tears With eyes of purple panoply and of a magnetic needle My wife with savanna eyes My wife with eyes of water to he drunk in prison My wife with eyes of wood always under the axe My wife with eyes of water-level of level of air earth and fire

You're jealous of a bird?" she asks. "What? No!" I snap. I just don’t think I like peacocks very much. "You're jealous of a bird," she says, a glint of amusement coming into her eyes. She glances back at her phone. "He IS gorgeous. Goddddd, soooo gorgeous," she moans out the words, throwing her head back. "Hilarious," I say, trying not to smile now at my own ridiculousness. "That bird was trying to move in on my territory. I know a brazen male threat when I see one.

We like to romanticize the wild, raw, majestic beauty of nature. But when you take a closer look, nature is really just a giant fuckfest. That beautiful bird chirping? It's a mating call. That pretty little bird is trying to get laid. And why does the peacock have such beautiful feathers? To attract females. Because he's trying to get laid.

the patron god of children born on Thursdays is Shiva the Destroyer, and that the day has two guiding animal spirits--the lion and the tiger. The official tree of children born on Thursday is the banyan. The official bird is the peacock. A person born on Thursday is always talking first, interrupting everyone else, can be a little aggressive, tends to be handsome ("a playboy or playgirl," in Ketut's words) but has a decent overall character, with an excellent memory and a desire to help other people.

Be like a tree, bloom like a flower, sing like a bird, and dance like a peacock.

Live like a bird Dream in a song

Medieval banquets show people eating all kinds of foods that are no longer eaten. Birds especially featured. Eagles, herons, peacocks, sparrows, larks, finches, swans, and almost all other feathered creatures were widely consumed. This wasn’t so much because swans and other birds were fantastically delicious—they weren’t; that’s why we don’t eat them now—but rather because other, better meats weren’t available.

After watching the house for a few days, she had concluded that the magician lived alone, but you never knew if someone had a secret lover stashed away. Or a very loud pet. That time with the peacock, for instance. Noisy birds, peacocks.

He gestured at her mask. "A swan. It suits you." "I didn't have many choices. It was either a swan or a peacock." The prince leaned closer, speaking softly. "Swans were my mother's favorite birds. She used to tell me that once they fall in love, they stay in love forever.

It is said that in those days one could hear seventy languages in the streets of Istanbul. The vast Ottoman Empire, shrunken and weakened though it now was, had made it normal and natural for Greeks to inhabit Egypt, Persians to settle in Arabia and Albanians to live with Slavs. Christians and Muslims of all sects, Alevis, Zoroastrians, Jews, worshippers of the Peacock Angel, subsisted side by side in the most improbable places and combinations. There were Muslim Greeks, Catholic Armenians, Arab Christians and Serbian Jews. Istanbul was the hub of this broken-felloed wheel, and there could be found epitomised the fantastical bedlam and babel, which although no one realised it at the time, was destined to be the model and precursor of all the world's great metropoles a hundred years hence, by which time Istanbul itself would, paradoxically, have lost its cosmopolitan brilliance entirely. It would be destined, perhaps, one day to find it again, if only the devilish false idols of nationalism, that specious patriotism of the morally stunted, might finally be toppled in the century to come.

It was difficult to anticipate—in these monsters with enormous, fantastic beaks which they opened wide immediately after birth, hissing greedily to show the backs of their throats, in these lizards with frail, naked bodies of hunchbacks—the future peacocks, pheasants, grouse or condors. Placed in cotton wool, in baskets, this dragon brood lifted blind, walleyed heads on thin necks, croaking voicelessly from their dumb throats.

The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow.

We like to romanticize the wild, raw, majestic beauty of nature. But when you take a closer look, nature is really just a giant fuckfest. That beautiful bird chirping? It's a mating call. That pretty little bird is trying to get laid. And why does the peacock have such beautiful feathers? To attract females. Because he's trying to get laid. Animals in the wild spend their entire lives trying to stay alive, and to mate. That's it. They eat, they sleep, they fuck, they raise their offspring. That's the meaning of their lives.

I had henna done once at a street fair outside the bookstore where I worked in high school," Zoey said. "Vines, all down my fingers, like that. Only not as pretty as yours." "Vines symbolize perseverance," Charlotte said. "Flowers mean joy. The sun represents eternal love. And the moon, here, is the power of change." She pointed to her knee. "Birds are supposed to be messengers between heaven and earth." She indicated a peacock on the other knee. Birds had always been her favorite to draw. Then she touched a circle on her leg at the hem of her cutoffs. "This is a mandala. It represents the universe." Zoey looked impressed. "I had no idea it all meant something." Charlotte put her hands back in her pockets. "In all my years, I've never encountered something that doesn't mean anything.

As an example, when Zeus is dallying with the nymph Io, Hera spots them, so he turns Io into a lovely white heifer. Hera, not fooled, seizes the cow and places her under the guard of a giant named Argus Panoptes (“All-Seeing”) because his body is covered with one hundred eyes (making him, quite literally, the first private eye called in by a wife to intervene in a case of adultery). Zeus sends in the god Hermes to tell him a boring, endless story, which gradually puts Argus to sleep, one eye at a time; then Hermes kills him and frees Io. Not done, Hera sends a gadfly to chase Io (an apt choice for hassling a cow), which stings her all the way to Egypt. Hera takes all of the eyes from Argus’ corpse and puts them on the tail of her favorite bird, the peacock. Take away the fanciful elements and the metamorphoses, and you have a classic story of an unfaithful husband confronted by an angry wife who tries to get even with the other woman.

Did ya know that female birds only got one ovary?" "What're ya talking about?" "See. These drawings and notes show that female birds only got one ovary." "Dang it, Joe. We're not here for a biology lesson. Get back to work." "Wait a second. Look here. This is a male peacock feather, and the note says that over eons of time, the males' feathers got larger and larger to attract females, till the point the males can barely lift off the ground. Can't hardly fly anymore." "Are you finished? We have a job to do." "Well, it's very interesting." Ed walked from the room. "Get to work, man.

In the woods I heard and saw the wild peacock for the first time. Its voice is not to be distinguished from that of the tame bird in England, a curious instance of the perpetuation of character under widely different circumstances, for the crow of the wild jungle-fowl does not rival that of the farm-yard cock.

But where should he begin? - Well, then, the trouble with the English was their: Their: In a word, Gibreel solemnly pronounced, their weather. Gibreel Farishta floating on his cloud formed the opinion that the moral fuzziness of the English was meteorologically induced. 'When the day is not warmer than the night,' he reasoned, 'when the light is not brighter than the dark, when the land is not drier than the sea, then clearly a people will lose the power to make distinctions, and commence to see everything - from political parties to sexual partners to religious beliefs - as much-the-same, nothing-to-choose, give-or-take. What folly! For truth is extreme, it is so and not thus, it is him and not her; a partisan matter, not a spectator sport. It is, in brief, heated. City,' he cried, and his voice rolled over the metropolis like thunder, 'I am going to tropicalize you.' Gibreel enumerated the benefits of the proposed metamorphosis of London into a tropical city: increased moral definition, institution of a national siesta, development of vivid and expansive patterns of behaviour among the populace, higher-quality popular music, new birds in the trees (macaws, peacocks, cockatoos), new trees under the birds (coco-palms, tamarind, banyans with hanging beards). Improved street-life, outrageously coloured flowers (magenta, vermilion, neon-green), spider-monkeys in the oaks. A new mass market for domestic air-conditioning units, ceiling fans, anti-mosquito coils and sprays. A coir and copra industry. Increased appeal of London as a centre for conferences, etc.: better cricketeers; higher emphasis on ball-control among professional footballers, the traditional and soulless English commitment to 'high workrate' having been rendered obsolete by the heat. Religious fervour, political ferment, renewal of interest in the intellegentsia. No more British reserve; hot-water bottles to be banished forever, replaced in the foetid nights by the making of slow and odorous love. Emergence of new social values: friends to commence dropping in on one another without making appointments, closure of old-folks' homes, emphasis on the extended family. Spicier foods; the use of water as well as paper in English toilets; the joy of running fully dressed through the first rains of the monsoon. Disadvantages: cholera, typhoid, legionnaires' disease, cockroaches, dust, noise, a culture of excess. Standing upon the horizon, spreading his arms to fill the sky, Gibreel cried: 'Let it be.

What's that sound?" Fran said. Then something as big as a vulture flapped heavily down from one of the trees and landed just in front of the car.It shook itself.It turned its long neck toward the car, raised its head, and regarded us. "Goddamn it," I said.I sat there with my hands on the wheel and stared at the thing. "Can you believe it?" Fran said."I never saw a real one before." We both knew it was a peacock, sure,but we didn't say the word out loud.We just watched it.The bird turned its head up in the air and made this harsh cry again.It had fluffed itself out and looked about twice the size it'd been when it landed. "Goddamn," I said again. We stayed where we were in the front seat. The bird moved forward a little.Then it turned its head to the side and braced itself.It kept its bright, wild eye right on us.Its tail was raised, and it was like a big fan folding in and out. There was every color in the rainbow shining from that tail. "My God," Fran said quietly.She moved her hand over to my knee. "Goddamn," I said. There was nothing else to say. The bird made this strange wailing sound once more. "May- awe, may-awe!" it went.If it'd been something I was hearing late at night and for the first time, I'd have thought it was somebody dying, or else something wild and dangerous.

Prum believes that animals may come to adopt certain aesthetic characteristics not because those traits are adaptive but simply because they are beautiful. This may be because of a sensory bias in the brain—a neurological feature that just prefers shiny things over nonshiny things—or a preference for novelty. But these attributes don’t necessarily signal that there is something better about the peacock with the extravagant tail. The peahen doesn’t like his tail more than others because it suggests he’s a strong and fit potential mate, but just because she likes how it’s shiny, and blue, and large. Prum bases this theory on a lifetime of studying birds like those in the drawers at his lab, many of which have plumage, skeletons, or songs that make it difficult for them to fly or easy to be spotted by predators.

water did not reach the sea. Flocks of birds were gathered to drink of it - peacocks, ostriches, pelicans, divers, animated the landscape with the beatings of their wings. Herds of graceful antelopes, troops of “empolangas,” or elands of the Cape - huge mammals capable of drinking a ton of this limpid water as easily as the bargeman would have tossed off a glass - herds of hippopotamuses, looking at a distance

It was then that she saw the curl. A lovely, shiny curl of hair the color of coral tea roses that wrapped itself around twigs and weeds, and then disappeared beneath an overgrown forsythia. So very Pre-Raphaelite! Beatrice reached to touch the curl, brushing the weeds aside. Nothing could have prepared her for the image of the peacock. Suddenly, there it was: tail-feathers fully unfurled, luminous blues and greens shimmering between blades of grass.

A Rakshasi did not live here. A princess did. I was staring into the most dazzling garden I had ever seen. Cobblestone pathways meandered between rows of salmon-hued hibiscus, regal hollyhock, delicate impatiens, wild orchids, thorny rosebushes, and manicured shrubs starred with jasmine. Bunches of bougainvillea cascaded down the sides of the wall, draped across the stone like extravagant shawls. Magnolia trees, cotton-candy pink, were interspersed with coconut trees, which let in streaks of purplish light through their fanlike leaves. A rock-rimmed pond glistened in a corner of the garden, and lotus blossoms sprouting from green discs skimmed its surface. A snow white bird that looked like a peacock wove in and out through a grove of pomegranate trees, which were set aflame by clusters of deep orange blossoms. I had seen blue peacocks before, but never a white one. An Ashoka tree stood at one edge of the garden, as if on guard, near the door. A brief wind sent a cluster of red petals drifting down from its branches and settling on the ground at my feet. A flock of pale blue butterflies emerged from a bed of golden trumpet flowers and sailed up into the sky. In the center of this scene was a peach stucco cottage with green shutters and a thatched roof, quaint and idyllic as a dollhouse. A heavenly perfume drifted over the wall, intoxicating me- I wanted nothing more than to enter.

I don’t like stories. I like moments. I like night better than day, moon better than sun, and here-and-now better than any sometime-later. I also like birds, mushrooms, the blues, peacock feathers, black cats, blue-eyed people, heraldry, astrology, criminal stories with lots of blood, and ancient epic poems where human heads can hold conversations with former friends and generally have a great time for years after they’ve been cut off. I like good food and good drink, sitting in a hot bath and lounging in a snowbank, wearing everything I own at once, and having everything I need close at hand. I like speed and that special ache in the pit of the stomach when you accelerate to the point of no return. I like to frighten and to be frightened, to amuse and to confound. I like writing on the walls so that no one can guess who did it, and drawing so that no one can guess what it is. I like doing my writing using a ladder or not using it, with a spray can or squeezing the paint from a tube. I like painting with a brush, with a sponge, and with my fingers. I like drawing the outline first and then filling it in completely, so that there’s no empty space left. I like letters as big as myself, but I like very small ones as well. I like directing those who read them here and there by means of arrows, to other places where I also wrote something, but I also like to leave false trails and false signs. I like to tell fortunes with runes, bones, beans, lentils, and I Ching. Hot climates I like in the books and movies; in real life, rain and wind. Generally rain is what I like most of all. Spring rain, summer rain, autumn rain. Any rain, anytime. I like rereading things I’ve read a hundred times over. I like the sound of the harmonica, provided I’m the one playing it. I like lots of pockets, and clothes so worn that they become a kind of second skin instead of something that can be taken off. I like guardian amulets, but specific ones, so that each is responsible for something separate, not the all-inclusive kind. I like drying nettles and garlic and then adding them to anything and everything. I like covering my fingers with rubber cement and then peeling it off in front of everybody. I like sunglasses. Masks, umbrellas, old carved furniture, copper basins, checkered tablecloths, walnut shells, walnuts themselves, wicker chairs, yellowed postcards, gramophones, beads, the faces on triceratopses, yellow dandelions that are orange in the middle, melting snowmen whose carrot noses have fallen off, secret passages, fire-evacuation-route placards; I like fretting when in line at the doctor’s office, and screaming all of a sudden so that everyone around feels bad, and putting my arm or leg on someone when asleep, and scratching mosquito bites, and predicting the weather, keeping small objects behind my ears, receiving letters, playing solitaire, smoking someone else’s cigarettes, and rummaging in old papers and photographs. I like finding something lost so long ago that I’ve forgotten why I needed it in the first place. I like being really loved and being everyone’s last hope, I like my own hands—they are beautiful, I like driving somewhere in the dark using a flashlight, and turning something into something completely different, gluing and attaching things to each other and then being amazed that it actually worked. I like preparing things both edible and not, mixing drinks, tastes, and scents, curing friends of the hiccups by scaring them. There’s an awful lot of stuff I like.

He remembered an old tale which his father was fond of telling him—the story of Eos Amherawdur (the Emperor Nightingale). Very long ago, the story began, the greatest and the finest court in all the realms of faery was the court of the Emperor Eos, who was above all the kings of the Tylwydd Têg, as the Emperor of Rome is head over all the kings of the earth. So that even Gwyn ap Nudd, whom they now call lord over all the fair folk of the Isle of Britain, was but the man of Eos, and no splendour such as his was ever seen in all the regions of enchantment and faery. Eos had his court in a vast forest, called Wentwood, in the deepest depths of the green-wood between Caerwent and Caermaen, which is also called the City of the Legions; though some men say that we should rather name it the city of the Waterfloods. Here, then, was the Palace of Eos, built of the finest stones after the Roman manner, and within it were the most glorious chambers that eye has ever seen, and there was no end to the number of them, for they could not be counted. For the stones of the palace being immortal, they were at the pleasure of the Emperor. If he had willed, all the hosts of the world could stand in his greatest hall, and, if he had willed, not so much as an ant could enter into it, since it could not be discerned. But on common days they spread the Emperor's banquet in nine great halls, each nine times larger than any that are in the lands of the men of Normandi. And Sir Caw was the seneschal who marshalled the feast; and if you would count those under his command—go, count the drops of water that are in the Uske River. But if you would learn the splendour of this castle it is an easy matter, for Eos hung the walls of it with Dawn and Sunset. He lit it with the sun and moon. There was a well in it called Ocean. And nine churches of twisted boughs were set apart in which Eos might hear Mass; and when his clerks sang before him all the jewels rose shining out of the earth, and all the stars bent shining down from heaven, so enchanting was the melody. Then was great bliss in all the regions of the fair folk. But Eos was grieved because mortal ears could not hear nor comprehend the enchantment of their song. What, then, did he do? Nothing less than this. He divested himself of all his glories and of his kingdom, and transformed himself into the shape of a little brown bird, and went flying about the woods, desirous of teaching men the sweetness of the faery melody. And all the other birds said: "This is a contemptible stranger." The eagle found him not even worthy to be a prey; the raven and the magpie called him simpleton; the pheasant asked where he had got that ugly livery; the lark wondered why he hid himself in the darkness of the wood; the peacock would not suffer his name to be uttered. In short never was anyone so despised as was Eos by all the chorus of the birds. But wise men heard that song from the faery regions and listened all night beneath the bough, and these were the first who were bards in the Isle of Britain.

Miraculously, some animals survived at the zoo and many escaped across the bridge, entering Old Town while the capital burned. People brave enough to stand by their windows, or unlucky enough to be outside, watched a biblical hallucination unfolding as the zoo emptied into Warsaw's streets. Seals waddled along the banks of the Vistula, camels and llamas wandered down alleyways, hooves skidding on cobblestone, ostriches and antelope trotted beside foxes and wolves, anteaters called out hatchee, hatchee as they scuttled over bricks. Locals saw blurs of fur and hide bolting past factories and apartment houses, racing to outlying fields of oats, buckwheat, and flax, scrambling into creeks, hiding in stairwells and sheds. Submerged in their wallows, the hippos, otters, and beavers survived. Somehow the bears, bison, Przywalski horses, camels, zebras, lynxes, peacocks and other birds, monkeys, and reptiles survived, too.

One feature of our own society that seems decidedly anomalous is the matter of sexual advertisement, As we have seen, it is strongly to be expected on evolutionary grounds that, where the sexes differ, it should be the males that advertise and the females that are drab. Modern western man is undoubtedly exceptional in this respect. It is of course true that some men dress flamboyantly and some women dress drably but, on average, there can be no doubt that in our society the equivalent of the peacock's tail is exhibited by the female, not by the male. Women paint their faces and glue on false eyelashes. Apart from special cases, like actors, men do not. Women seem to be interested in their own personal appearance and are encouraged in this by their magazines and journals. Men's magazines are less preoccupied with male sexual attractiveness, and a man who is unusually interested in his own dress and appearance is apt to arouse suspicion, both among men and among women. When a woman is described in conversation, it is quite likely that her sexual attractiveness, or lack of it, will be prominently mentioned. This is true, whether the speaker is a man or a woman. When a man is described, the adjectives used are much more likely to have nothing to do with sex. Faced with these facts, a biologist would be forced to suspect that he was looking at a society in which females compete for males, rather than vice versa. In the case of birds of paradise, we decided that females are drab because they do not need to compete for males. Males are bright and ostentatious because females are in demand and can afford to be choosy. The reason female birds of paradise are in demand is that eggs are a more scarce resource than sperms. What has happened in modern western man? Has the male really become the sought-after sex, the one that is in demand, the sex that can afford to be choosy? If so, why?

Who was it who said, 'the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless: peacocks and lilies, for instance'?" "I think that was Ruskin," says Jack. "Ha!" laughs Charles. "There's truth in that. Could have included women, too." Charles laughs loudly at his own joke. "Only if you're to assume a woman's sole purpose in life is to look good," counters Lillian. "Well of course... there's looking good... and there's child-bearing," adds Charles, still looking ahead at the bird. Lillian grips the bag in her lap a little more tightly. If the artist seated behind them is aware of the tension, he deflects artfully. "I think Ruskin misses the point," he says. "Beauty is never useless. It has purpose. Look at us, sitting here. We've ceased all other activity just to pause for a moment and wonder at the sight of this bird. The extraordinary jolts us from the mundane and makes us feel something. It reminds us we're alive." "Rather like art," says Lillian, after a moment. Jack meets her gaze in the wing-mirror and nods. "Yes. Art. Music. Love." Lillian drops her gaze, unexpected heat flooding her cheeks.

Music was coming from somewhere. Riddle whirled around to stare down the empty Chamber. The music was growing louder. It was eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair on Harry's scalp and made his heart feel as though it was swelling to twice its normal size. Then, as the music reached such a pitch that Harry felt it vibrating inside his own ribs, flames erupted at the top of the nearest pillar. A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird music to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged bundle. A second later, the bird was flying straight at Harry. It dropped the ragged thing it was carrying at his feet, then landed heavily on his shoulder. As it folded its great wings, Harry looked up and saw it had a long, sharp golden beak and a black beady eye. The bird stopped singing. It sat still and warm next to Harry's cheek, gazing steadily at Riddle. "That's a phoenix...." said Riddle, staring shrewdly back at it. "Fawkes?" Harry breathed, and he felt the bird's golden claws squeeze his shoulder gently.

It is quiet in the clearing, though gradually Lillian's ears attune to the soft rustling of insects and birds moving through the undergrowth, the faraway tapping of a woodpecker high in a tree. Down on the ground, a bronze-colored beetle tries to scale the side of her shoe. It slips on the smooth leather and tumbles back into the dry leaves, waggling its legs in the air. She shifts slightly on the tree trunk then watches as Jack pulls a strand of grass from a clump growing nearby and sucks on one end, looking about at the canopy overhead. "Wonderful light," he murmurs. "I wish I hadn't left my sketchbook at the house." She knows she must say something. But the moment stretches and she can't find the words so instead she looks about, trying to see the clearing as he might, trying to view the world through an artist's eyes. What details would he pull from this scene, what elements would he commit to memory to reproduce on paper? A cathedral, he'd said; and she supposes there is something rather celestial and awe-inspiring about the tall, arched trees and the light streaming in golden shafts through the soft green branches, filtered as though through stained glass.

Males of all species are made for wooing females, and females typically choose among their suitors. If you take a closer look, you can observe such behavior all around you. The beautiful bird chirping outside your window. It’s a mating call. That pretty little bird is trying to attract a potential mate, so that it can propagate its genes. Why does the peacock have such beautiful feathers? It is to attract a healthy female. He as well is trying to propagate his genes. Even we humans, are not much different from the rest of the animal kingdom when it comes to attracting potential mates. When women dress up for their night out at the club, they are doing so to look attractive. This is a subconscious evolutionary desire to attract as many potential mates as possible.... While women tend to grab attention with their looks, men on the other hand, tend to attract as many potential females as possible, by showing off their resources. When a man shows off with his fancy car, expensive gold watch and suit, or flexes his muscles and brags about how many credit cards he owns, he’s doing so to make himself desirable by healthy women, in order to propagate his genes. It is all in the pursuit of reproduction.

She finds herself, by some miraculous feat, no longer standing in the old nursery but returned to the clearing in the woods. It is the 'green cathedral', the place she first kissed Jack all those weeks ago. The place where they laid out the stunned sparrowhawk, then watched it spring miraculously back to life. All around, the smooth, grey trunks of ancient beech trees rise up from the walls of the room to tower over her, spreading their branches across the ceiling in a fan of tangled branches and leaves, paint and gold leaf cleverly combined to create the shimmering effect of a leafy canopy at its most dense and opulent. And yet it is not the clearing, not in any real or grounded sense, because instead of leaves, the trees taper up to a canopy of extraordinary feathers shimmering and spreading out like a peacock's tail across the ceiling, a hundred green, gold and sapphire eyes gazing down upon her. Jack's startling embellishments twist an otherwise literal interpretation of their woodland glade into a fantastical, dreamlike version of itself. Their green cathedral, more spectacular and beautiful than she could have ever imagined. She moves closer to one of the trees and stretches out a hand, feeling instead of rough bark the smooth, cool surface of a wall. She can't help but smile. The trompe-l'oeil effect is dazzling and disorienting in equal measure. Even the window shutters and cornicing have been painted to maintain the illusion of the trees, while high above her head the glass dome set into the roof spills light as if it were the sun itself, pouring through the canopy of eyes. The only other light falls from the glass windowpanes above the window seat, still flanked by the old green velvet curtains, which somehow appear to blend seamlessly with the painted scene. The whole effect is eerie and unsettling. Lillian feels unbalanced, no longer sure what is real and what is not. It is like that book she read to Albie once- the one where the boy walks through the wardrobe into another world. That's what it feels like, she realizes: as if she has stepped into another realm, a place both fantastical and otherworldly. It's not just the peacock-feather eyes that are staring at her. Her gaze finds other details: a shy muntjac deer peering out from the undergrowth, a squirrel, sitting high up in a tree holding a green nut between its paws, small birds flitting here and there. The tiniest details have been captured by Jack's brush: a silver spider's web, a creeping ladybird, a puffy white toadstool. The only thing missing is the sound of the leaf canopy rustling and the soft scuttle of insects moving across the forest floor.

Prayer is wonder, reverence. Prayer is receptivity for the miracle that surrounds you. Prayer is surrender to the beauty, to the grandeur to this fantastic existence. Prayer is non-argumentative dialogue with existence. It is not a discussion... it is a love-dialogue. You don't argue... you simply whisper sweet nothings. When a man falls in love with a woman he whispers sweet nothings into her ear. When a man falls into love with existence... the same romance: prayer IS romance. Many people have lost the capacity to pray, because many people have lost the capacity to wonder. They have lost the capacity to be surprised. You go on seeing millions of wonders every day but you are not surprised at all. Your eyes are so full of dust and knowledge that you don't see anything. A seed is sprouting, and you don't see any wonder. A new leaf coming out of the tree, and you don't see any wonder. A bird singing, and nothing happens inside you. A peacock dances, and nothing dances inside you. A white cloud floats in the sky, and you remain untouched. Then prayer is impossible. Prayer needs a poetic heart, a loving heart. Approach reality more poetically... Prayer is the capacity to be amazed. prayer is the capacity that you had as children, and you have lost. Claim it -- reclaim it -- because with prayer you have lost all. The day your wondering eyes closed, God became nonexistential to you. Open your wondering eyes again, and you will find him pulsating again. He's very close by... he's all around you... he is within and without.

I had become something of a bird man – a passion that has remained with me – and could tell a Himalayan griffon from a bearded vulture and could identify the streaked laughing thrush, the orange bullfinch, Tytler’s leaf warbler and the Kashmir flycatcher, which was threatened then, and must surely by now be extinct. The trouble with being in Dachigam was that it had the effect of unsettling one’s resolve. It underlined the futility of it all. It made one feel that Kashmir really belonged to those creatures. That none of us who were fighting over it – Kashmiris, Indians, Pakistanis, Chinese (they have a piece of it too – Aksai Chin, which used to be part of the old Kingdom of Jammu and Kashmir), or for that matter Pahadis, Gujjars, Dogras, Pashtuns, Shins, Ladakhis, Baltis, Gilgitis, Purikis, Wakhis, Yashkuns, Tibetans, Mongols, Tatars, Mon, Khowars – none of us, neither saint nor soldier, had the right to claim the truly heavenly beauty of that place for ourselves. I was once moved to say so, quite casually, to Imran, a young Kashmiri police officer who had done some exemplary undercover work for us. His response was, ‘It’s a very great thought, Sir. I have the same love for animals as yourself. Even in my travels in India I feel the exact same feeling – that India belongs not to Punjabis, Biharis, Gujaratis, Madrasis, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Christians, but to those beautiful creatures – peacocks, elephants, tigers, bears . . .’ He was polite to the point of being obsequious, but I knew what he was getting at. It was extraordinary; you couldn’t – and still cannot – trust even the ones you assumed were on your side. Not even the damn police.

I am glad when we enter the conference room that Chihiro made sure I wasn’t late to the meeting. Not only does my appearance cut short several whispered confabs in the corners of the room (confirming her suspicion that people would have used my lateness as a chance to talk about me), but I also get to take my favorite seat: at the far end of the table next to my favorite monkey. I’ve never quite understood how the monkeys got here. The fresco on the ceiling of this room –originally the formal dining room- is modeled on the one in the formal dining room at La Civetta. It depicts a lemon-covered pergola in a garden. An assortment of birds –doves, sparrows, and long-tailed peacocks – roost on the wooden struts. In the original fresco, fat cupids also frolic amidst the greenery, their chubby feet dangling precariously from their perches. In one corner a plaster foot even protrudes from the frescoed surface. In this New York version of the fresco, there are monkeys instead of cupids: monkeys peering out between leafy branches and monkeys dangling by their tails from the wooden slats of the pergola. If you look carefully (and I have had ample opportunity through long and tedious budget reviews to examine every inch of the palatial room), you can even find a few monkeys that have climbed down from the pergola and found their way into the formal dining room to perform rude and unspeakable acts... My favorite monkey, though, is the little one who peers out from behind the leafy fronds of an aspidistra, making an obscene gesture I have seen only on the streets of Italy. I always sit right next to him. He gives me some relief for the sentiments I am unable to express in the course of department meetings.

He’d been so sure he’d never cheat, contemptuous of friends and colleagues who risked perfectly good marriages because they couldn’t keep their pants zipped. Until that night at the new pub across from the courthouse, when Detective Jesca Ashton had grinned at him from down the bar, hair waving to her waist, China-doll teeth glinting in the dim light. When he was young he’d had a thing for long hair.

The Amber girl had made him late. Stumbling on her under the tree, nearly falling on her beauty. Eye-tipped blue feathers twining her wrist, Waldo had bowed, kissed the ground—the all-knowing peacock. Friend of the angels, his mother had said, their messenger; Amber was their seeing stone.

And then red, marbled with pink, around two imperfect circles of bone-white with dark centers. A space where there shouldn’t be one—ground visible, covered with grass, and some clover. Red again—an image of the tomatoes on the kitchen counter flashed across Beatrice’s mind—surrounding two more bone-white circles. The hand bearing the peacock was severed, that was why Beatrice could see a sliver of ground where basic biology dictated there should be skin. There was a clean cut five inches or so above the wrist, just missing the edge of the peacock’s tail, the muscles and tendons—the bones—neatly sliced through like a Swiss round steak prepared by an expert butcher.

The Happy Crow Once upon a time, there lived a crow in a forest. This crow was absolutely satisfied and happy with its life. One day it happened to go to a pond to drink water. It looked at its reflection in the water and turned its face this way and that. It preened its wings and thought about how shiny they were. The crow was convinced of its beauty. But then he saw a white swan swim by. Some ducks standing near the pond laughed at the crow for its black color and complimented and praised the swan. The crow was full of admiration for the swan. He told the swan that it was beautiful and also added, “you must be the happiest bird in the world.” The swan, however, did not appear so happy. When the crow asked her the reason the swan replied, “I also thought that I was the most beautiful and the happiest bird around, until I saw the parrot. You will not believe it. You and I have just one color, but the parrot has two, green and red. In my opinion, the parrot must be the happiest bird in the world.” The crow was intrigued and went to meet the parrot. When he saw the parrot, he too was convinced that it was indeed the most beautiful bird in the forest. When the crow asked the parrot, “you must be the happiest bird in the forest,” the parrot laughed and said, “I too lived under the same illusion, until I saw the peacock. You won’t believe how beautiful the peacock is. I have never seen a more colorful bird.” The inquisitive crow now went to meet the peacock and indeed it was the most colorful bird anyone could imagine. It danced happily with its wings spread and the crow watched mesmerized. However, a bird catcher hiding in the bush too had the same reaction and he captured the colorful peacock. The colorful parrot and the white swan too could not escape this fate. However, the crow with its shiny feathers and lustrous wings escaped this fate. The society’s bias against dark color saved the crow. The peacock, parrot, and swan looked at the crow flying about freely and thought “this must be the happiest bird in the world.

Here on this grass-plot, in this very place, To come and sport: her peacocks fly amain … THE TEMPEST, 4.1 Peacock, long a symbol of nobility and immortality, was one of the most esteemed feast foods in Shakespeare’s time. Served roasted and placed back in its feathers, it was then dusted with real gold. Metal rods were inserted into the bird’s body so that it remained upright and seemingly alive. The peacock would be made to appear to breathe fire by the cook’s trick of placing a bit of camphor-soaked cotton in its mouth and lighting it just before serving. Despite these elaborate preparations, peacock was not considered tasty. Wrote one 1599 author, “Peacocke, is very hard meate, of bad temperature, and as evil juyce.

The entire meal had a bird and egg theme, including magnificent castles with birds that flew out when the tower tops were cut off, roasted peacocks that still looked alive, swans made of sugar paste, and hundreds of eggs dyed black in the water of walnut hulls. I would have loved to have seen such a sight!

If we had to accept the principle of numerical superiority while selecting our national bird, the choice would have fallen not on the peacock but on the common crow.’13

As the Chinese translation of the name Sukhāvatī suggests, it is a land of supreme joy. The Sanskrit is of similar meaning: “that which possesses ease and comfort.” Sukhāvatī is not subject to the sufferings that plague this world and, furthermore, it is a land of surpassed beauty. It is described as having seven tiers of balustrades, seven rows of nets, and seven rows of trees, all adorned with four jewels (gold, silver, lapsis lazuli, and crystal). There is a lake of the seven jewels (gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal, a kind of big shell [tridacna gigas], coral, and agate), filled with water having the eight virtues. The bottom of the lake is gold sand. On the four sides of the lake are stairs (galleries) made of the four jewels. Above are towers and palaces also adorned with the seven jewels. Above are towers and palaces also adorned with the seven jewels. In the lake bloom lotus flowers as large as chariot wheels. The blue lotus flowers emit a blue light, and the yellow, red, and white lotus flowers emit light of corresponding colors. They all give forth a sweet fragrance. The delightful sound of heavenly music can be hard, and in the morning, at noon, and in the evening mandārava flowers fall from the sky and gently pile up on the golden ground. Every morning the inhabitants of the Pure Land gather these flowers with the hems of their robes and make offerings of them to myriads of buddhas in other lands. At mealtime they return to their own land, where they take their meal and stroll around. There are many kinds of birds—swans, peacocks, parrots, sharikas, kalaviṅkas, and jīvaṃjīvakas, which sing with beautiful voices, proclaiming the teachings of the Buddha. When living beings hear this song, they think about the Buddha, Dharma (“law,” or his teachings), and Saṅgha (“community of believers”). When the gentle breezes blow, the rows of four-jeweled trees and jeweled nets give forth a gentle music, like a beautiful symphony. In this land dwell Amitābha Buddha and his two attendants, the bodhisattvas Avalokitśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta. At their feet are those virtuous beings who have been reborn in that land because of their ardent faith. All, however, are male; women of deep faith are reborn here with male bodies. The female sex, considered inferior and unfortunate, has no place in Sukhāvatī. All people, says Śākyamuni, should ardently wish for rebirth in that land and become the companions of the most virtuous of all beings. People cannot hope for rebirth there just by performing a few good deeds, however. If living beings meditate eagerly upon the name of Amitābha for even one day with an undisturbed mind, Amitābha and his holy retinue will appear before them to receive them at the end of Life. They will enter the Pure Land with unperturbed hearts.

Vines symbolize perseverance,” Charlotte said. “Flowers mean joy. The sun represents eternal love. And the moon, here, is the power of change.” She pointed to her knee. “Birds are supposed to be messengers between heaven and earth.” She indicated a peacock on the other knee. Birds had always been her favorite to draw. Then she touched a circle on her leg at the hem of her cutoffs. “This is a mandala. It represents the universe.

She fluffed up her feathers, and even borrowed a few, to give being a pretend peacock a try. But pretending to be something you’re not, is not how you learn how to fly.

In 1973, the Kenyan government banned elephant hunting and the club fell on hard times. Holden brought in two minority partners, Don Hunt and Julian McKeand. Together they created the Mount Kenya Game Ranch with captive breeding programs for thirty-seven African species, and an orphanage for rescued animals. There were fifty types of exotic birds, including sacred ibises, marabou storks, peacocks and Egyptian geese. One of the rarest species at the game ranch was the East African Bongo – a critically endangered red and white-striped antelope, which became the ranch’s mascot. Holden showed Powers the club’s first-class amenities. They visited the Arabian horse stables, and walked down a garden path to the guest cottages, dubbed Millionaire’s Row.

Indian music divides the octave into 22 srutis or demi-semitones. These microtonal intervals permit fine shades of musical expression unattainable by the Western chromatic scale of 12 semitones. Each one of the seven basic notes of the octave is associated in Hindu mythology with a color, and the natural cry of a bird or beast-Do with green, and the peacock; Re with red, and the skylark; Mi with golden, and the goat; Fa with yellowish white, and the heron; Sol with black, and the nightingale; La with yellow, and the horse; Si with a combination of all colors, and the elephant.

,,,,And we've got peacocks---" "Those are yours, Dad. " Emmett said. "Yes, I know. I see that more clearly every day, I said slowly. "But they'll end up yours. I hear they're supposed to live forever.

The first Vikings to reach Iceland, therefore, did so purely by accident. Viking sailors reckoned through careful observation, and trial and error, not sophisticated navigational tools. Land was found by noting changes in the color of water, differences in the flight patterns of birds, and the presence of driftwood. The Vikings calculated latitude by the midday sun during the day, and by the stars at night. If neither of those two options were available, they relied on instinct. Skippers were notoriously pragmatic. The Laxdæla Saga tells the story of Olaf the Peacock who got hopelessly lost in a fog and drifted for days. When it finally lifted, there was a heated debate about what direction to go. The crew voted for a particular direction and informed Olaf of their choice. The grizzled captain ignored them and told his veteran navigator to pick the direction. 'I want only the shrewdest one to decide', he said, 'because in my opinion, the council of fools is all the more dangerous the more of them there are.

I wonder if he realized the peacocks would soon begin multiplying, because if I’m not much mistaken, I see a few babies poking their heads out of the shrubbery,” Abigail said. “Baby peacocks?” Rosetta took off toward the shrubbery before anyone could stop her. A shrill screech split the air right as an entire flock of peacocks came charging out of the shrubbery and directly toward Rosetta. Dropping Abigail’s arm, Millie broke into a run, dodging peacock after peacock as she tried to get to the child. By the time she finally reached her, Millie had been pecked numerous times. Scooping Rosetta up into her arms, she hugged the little girl tightly to herself before she looked over the child’s curls, discovering, much to her dismay, that they were now completely surrounded by the birds. “Shoo,” she shouted, but all that managed to do was set off additional screeching. A small hand on her cheek had her looking down. Rosetta, much to Millie’s surprise, wasn’t looking frightened in the least. In fact, she was smiling. “Aren’t they beautiful?” Rosetta asked before she tucked her small head into the crook of Millie’s neck. She then let out the smallest of sighs as her other hand reached up and closed around the fabric of Millie’s blouse. Right there and then, Millie lost her heart. Leaning closer to the little girl nestled against her, she breathed in the sweet scent of Rosetta’s hair, but then remembered she was right in the midst of a flock of mad peacocks. Lifting her head, she eyed the birds that were closing in on her. “They’re not going to hurt you,” Elizabeth called over the screeching. “Animals adore Rose. You’ll be fine walking through them.” Millie’s first thought, since the numerous pecks the peacocks had given her were beginning to sting, was that Elizabeth was up to no good, but then she remembered she was carrying Rosetta. It had been clear from the start that Elizabeth took her role as older sibling very seriously. Taking a steadying breath, Millie tightened her hold on Rosetta and began moving ever so slowly forward. To her relief, the peacocks stopped screeching and then filed, one after another, into a straight line behind her. Hoping she was not setting herself up for an attack, Millie headed for the house, wanting to put a solid wall between her and the birds. “I

I got used to birds: small black birds flying up from behind a building like God had tossed up a handful of currants, birds squalling in the parking lot of the grocery store (drowning the hum of industrial refrigerators), chachalacas -brown robed nuns to the spangled disco dancer peacocks - cackling in the dust of our yard. I got used to the chatters, squeaks, squalls, peeps, calls that sounded like bitter laughter, whistles, flutes, calls that sounded like souls ascending to heaven. I got used to dust and flatness, to sunsets like pink water pouring from the sky, flooding the earth with orange soda. I got used to wind: the hot, cruel wind of afternoon, the merciful magnolia breeze of night. I got used to it. But then I had to go.

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I think he is losing heart in his attempts to woo her. In that bright-yellow waistcoat, the bottom button always punctiliously undone and the pointed flaps open over his neat little paunch, he is as intent and circumspect as one of those outlandishly plumed male birds, peacock or cock peasant, who gorgeously stalk up and down at a distance, desperate of eye but pretending indifference, while the drab hen unconcernedly pecks in the gravel for grubs.

I simply do not understand the appeal of the turban. Lady Barrington looks as if a feather pillow has attached itself to her head.” Unable to miss the headwear in question, Alex adopted the same method of conversation and replied, “Indeed. Although considering the enormous peacock feather protruding from the thing, it appears as though there may be some kind of exotic bird trapped under there.” “Should we attempt a rescue?” Ella asked casually, sending all three girls into bright laughter. As

The Vega Gull is peacock blue with silver wings, more splendid than any bird I’ve known, and somehow mine to fly. She’s called The Messenger, and has been designed and built with great care and skill to do what should be impossible—cross an ocean in one brave launch, thirty-six hundred miles of black chop and nothingness—and to take me with her. It

Come, let's go to the maze with its sixteen-foot-high box hedges, designed by Perrault himself, who advised Louis XIV to include thirty-nine fountains each representing one of Aesop's fables. Water jets spurt from the animals' mouths to give the charming impression of speech between the creatures, powered by waterwheels on the Seine. Within here are the Owl and Birds, the Eagle and Fox, the Peacock and Jackdaw, the Wolf and Heron, the Tortoise and Hare, the Council of Mice.

Like a peacock, spread yourself for me. Awe me with your plumage. We’re birds of a feather, you and I. I hear your cry, do you hear mine? A mating call before you fall, your holla never heard. My moaning bird, One by one, I’ll count your feathers. Let me try to make it better. Can I kiss your scars? I want to give you what you’re needing Use my heart to staunch the bleeding And for your broken wing, my arms will be the sling Where you go, I go, even due south Borrow my breath, mouth to mouth Resuscitation A flock to ourselves, a murmuration Just us two in our love nest Hide in my love, take your rest Till you’re ready to fly again Fly into my arms, A safe arrival, a sure survival, a glorious revival Then we’ll leave this nest together Two birds, we’ll soar above the past behind us A path we can’t un-fly A death we can’t un-die But we ain’t at death’s door Nah, it’s time to leave. Our hearts can do the impossible Do you believe? Then fly, my love! Soar! My pretty bird, fly with me and cry no more.

Kunhamina’s way to the madrassa lay through a patch of woodland, where a clump of Arasu trees shed their flowers over the footpath. That day it looked as if the trees had rained flowers; Kunhamina stood admiring the floral carpet, when a flock of foraging peafowl swooped down around her. Charmed, and hardly realizing what she was doing, Kunhamina undid the package, broke the pancakes into flakes, and fed them to the peafowl. When she was done with the last bit, she rubbed her palms clean and turned to go. But the crested king-fowl hopped behind her for more. ‘Finished, Peacock-Saar!’ she said. The bird chased her and pecked her on the calf. It hurt and bled a little, but she was jubilant, she had something to tell them at the madrassa; she had been pecked by a real peacock! She told Kholusu and Noorjehan.

A loud squawking sound split the air. Then another, filling the space with piercing shrieks. "What is that?" Sophie said. "A velociraptor? A rabid monkey?" Jasmine shook her head. "Remember the ten-feet warning? The peacocks like to impress the peahens." "What is a peahen?" Nina asked. What kind of a name was that for anything? "Peacocks are the male birds with those big plumes," Jasmine explained. "Peahens are the females." "Why do the men get the pretty feathers?" Sophie asked. "Like most things, I blame the patriarchy.

The vampires could no more make a nest of hemophages into a vampiric hunt than a flock of peacocks could make a mouse into a bird.

Talent is like a pretty feather in the tail of a peacock, daughter. It brings joy to the powerful but only sorrow to the bird.

I feel like a…peacock.” “Back to birds again, I see.” His expression softened. “Many believe peacocks are beautiful.” “How about a cockatoo?” Roth’s eyes lightened. “I’m sure there are some that find them beautiful, also.” “A pigeon?” He chuckled. “Layla, nothing about you reminds me of a pigeon.” “That’s good to know.

We round the frangipani, coming face-to-face with two peacocks---one male, with magnificent iridescent plumage sparkling in royal blues, greens, and golden browns, not to mention the circular eyespots, his crown a crest of feathers resembling a helmet. The female, although beautiful, has drabber plumage and a short tail. Garrance beams as the large birds greet her like dogs. "Meet Yin and Yang," she says, and Juju rolls onto his back. "These two are the only ones who tolerate Juju and vice versa." "Maybe because they don't call him names," I say with a laugh, and Garrance joins me.

Now I’m no art critic, but in a time seen as a bridge between the late middle ages and the early renaissance, where the church played such a substantial part in the day to day running of people's lives, Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, which is painted on oak with a square middle panel flanked by two doors that close over the centre like shutters, is rather racy. When the outer shutters are folded over they show a grisaille painting of the earth during creation. But it’s the three scenes of the inner triptych that fascinate me. If you’re unfamiliar with the painting, I’ll do my best to describe it for you. Apologies in advance if I miss anything out. It’s regular sort of stuff, you know, naked women being fondled by demons, a bloke being kissed by a pig dressed as a nun, another bloke being eaten by some kind of story book character while loads of blackbirds fly out of his arse, a couple locked in a glass sphere and – let’s not beat about the Bosch here – locked in each other’s embrace as well. There are loads of people feeding each other fruit, doing handstands, hatching out of eggs, climbing up ladders to get inside the bodies of other people and looking at demon’s arses. There’s a couple getting caught shagging by giant birds, and a white bloke and a black Rastafarian with ‘locks (400 years before the Rastafari movement was founded) about to have a snog. You’ve got God giving Eve to a very puny-looking, limp-dicked Adam, and there’s a bunch of people sitting around a table inside the body of another bloke while an old woman fills up on wine from a decent-sized barrel while a kind of giant metal face pukes out loads of naked blokes who go running into a trumpet and another bloke being fed a cherry by a giant bird while a white bloke shows a black lady something in the sky. It’s all going on! There's loads of those ‘living dead’ mateys walking about, and a bloke carrying giant grapes past a topless girl with, it has to be said, pretty decent tits. She’s balancing a giant dice on her head while doing something strange to another bloke’s arse while a rabbit in clothes walks past. You can’t see what she’s doing because there’s a table in the way but beside them is a serpent-type creature with just one massive boob and a pretty pert nipple. One huge tit the size of his chest! Of all things, he’s holding a backgammon board up in the air. I’d say Bosch was a tit man, wouldn’t you? But there’s more. There’s a crowd of naked girls – black & white - in a water pool, all balancing cherries on their heads; read into that what you will. There are just LOADS of naked women in this water pool, including one of the black girls who’s balancing a peacock on her head. There are dozens of nudists riding horses around them in a circle. Some are sharing the same horse, so I must admit that in places it appears to be a little intimate. And now what have we got! There’s a couple cavorting inside a giant shell which is being carried on the back of another bloke. Why doesn’t he just put it down and climb in and have a threes-up? There are people with wings, creatures reading books and just more and more nudists. There’s a naked woman lying back, and this other bloke with his face extremely close to her nether regions! What on earth does the blighter think he’s playing at? There’s loads of grey half men-half fish, some balancing red balls on their heads like seals, and another fellow doing a handstand underwater while holding onto his nuts. You’ve got a ball in a river with people climbing all over it, while a bloke inside the ball is touching a lady in what appears to be a very inappropriate manner! There’s a kind of platypus-type fish reading a book underground and Theresa May triggering Article 50 of Brexit (just kidding about the Theresa May bit).

The most poignant image of all is one she only notices as she takes another turn and gazes at the ceiling. In a single patch of blue sky, a solitary gap in the dense canopy, she sees the outline of a familiar bird: a sparrowhawk flying free. She smiles to see it, remembering that first day with Jack in their woodland cathedral. It's then that she realizes, finally, what the room represents. It isn't just a playful depiction of their woodland place, a triumph of the mastery of illusion. This painted room is something else entirely. It is a declaration of love. It is a veiled tribute to their love affair- a depiction of the most precious moments they have shared, laid out in a secret code only she will understand. Lillian spins around, astounded, drinking it all in.

I think it would be for the best if we both pretend yesterday afternoon- in the woods- it never happened. Wouldn't you agree?" "I would." He takes a step closer, his eyes still locked on hers. He is no longer smiling. "And I think we should avoid any future situations that put us in close proximity to each other." "Like this one?" "Yes." Jack nods, still holding her eye, and she tries hard to control the rise of blood to her face as a fragment of something from the woods comes back to her- the sensation of his fingers running down the curve of her collarbone, his mouth against her neck. "Good." She clears her throat. "I'm glad we understand each other." "We do." He takes another step towards her, so close now that she wonders if it is the breeze through the open window she can feel on her skin, or his warm breath. "I think that is our problem, Lillian. We understand each other. You and I, we seem to share something." Lillian can hear her heart beating in her ribcage. "I felt it that first moment I saw you... at the party." Lillian swallows. "You feel it too, don't you?" he asks. The sun, now low in the sky, filters through the trees outside in the arboretum, casting them both in a burnished glow. She knows she must go. She knows she must turn and leave the room, but something in his eyes holds her fixed to the spot. "Tell me that it's not just me, that I'm not imagining this," he says in a low voice. There is a stillness in the room, as if they both await the next breath, the next word. She swallows. "I feel it, too." She isn't sure who takes the next step but it doesn't really matter; she is in his arms again and he is kissing her, pulling her close and all reason and rational thought- all the jumbled arguments she has agonized over- fly away like a flock of birds startled from the branches of a tree. Her arms are wrapped around his waist and his hands are on her face and in her hair as they stumble backwards. She meets the edge of the desk, and then he is lifting her onto its surface, several brushes clattering to the floor as he presses against her. "We mustn't," she sighs, but already her fingers are tugging at the buttons of his shirt. She parts her legs and his hands move under her skirt, his fingertips grazing the bare skin above her silk stockings. "Do you want me to stop?" he asks, his breath hot against her neck. But she draws him to her again, pressing her mouth against his ear to whisper her answer. "Don't stop. I don't want you to stop.

They have the place to themselves and for a while they simply sit and look out at the view, her body relaxing into his. The cloudless sky is a spectacular wash of graduated colors- navy highest above them, fading to lighter cyan closer to the earth, under-lit by the rosy blush of the sun hovering upon the horizon. There is a peace to the place, a certain stillness, nothing but the setting sun and the occasional silhouette of a soaring bird to distract from the awe-inspiring view.

She isn't sure how long they sit like that, the two of them side by side, lost in their own thoughts, but it's a soft scratching sound that brings her attention back to the clearing. Opening her eyes, she looks across to where they had left the prone bird and is startled to see the hawk no longer lying beneath the leaf litter but standing upright, its head cocked, one beady orange eye peering at her with suspicion. "Look," she whispers, reaching for Jack's arm. Jack follows her gaze. The bird studies them a moment then hops clumsily away through the leaves towards the base of a tree. Lillian holds her breath, watching as it half-extends one wing. It hops a few more paces but it looks off-balance, too damaged to fly; but it's as if it hears her thought and determines to prove her wrong for suddenly it stretches out both wings and, in one fluid movement, takes flight across the clearing to land in the lowest branch of a nearby tree. Lillian feels her heart beating in her chest, a heady mix of excitement and elation. The sparrowhawk perches on the bough, its eye still fixed in their direction before it glides off the branch and sails low across the clearing in a showy swoop before soaring away through the trees and out of sight. "Well how about that?" says Jack. "Lazarus rises.

Have you ever seen a documentary about those birds that make gardens and towers and clearings in the bushes where they perform their mating dances? Did you know that the only ones that find a mate are the ones that make the best gardens, the best towers, the best clearings, the ones that perform the most elaborate dances? Haven't you ever seen those ridiculous birds that practically dance themselves to death to woo the female? That's what Arturo Belano was like, a stupid, conceited peacock. And visceral realism was his exhausting dance of love for me. The thing was, I didn't love him anymore. You can woo a girl with a poem, but you can't hold on to her with a poem. Not even with a poetry movement. Why did I keep hanging out with the same people he hung out with for a while? Well, they were my friends too, my friends still, although it wasn't long before I got tired of them. Let me tell you something. The university was real, the biology department was real, my professors were real, my classmates were real. By that I mean tangible, with goals that were more or less clear, plans that were more or less clear. Those people weren't real. The great poet Alí Chumacero (who I guess shouldn't be blamed for having a name like that) was real, do you see what I mean?, what he left behind was real. What they left behind, on the other hand, wasn't real. Poor little mice hypnotized by Ulises and led to the slaughter by Arturo. Let me put it as concisely as I can: the real problem was that they were almost all at least twenty and they acted like they were barely fifteen. Do you see what I mean?

IT WAS CHRISTMAS night, the eve of the Boxing Day Meet. You must remember that this was in the old Merry England of Gramarye, when the rosy barons ate with their fingers, and had peacocks served before them with all their tail feathers streaming, or boars’ heads with the tusks stuck in again—when there was no unemployment because there were too few people to be unemployed—when the forests rang with knights walloping each other on the helm, and the unicorns in the wintry moonlight stamped with their silver feet and snorted their noble breaths of blue upon the frozen air. Such marvels were great and comfortable ones. But in the Old England there was a greater marvel still. The weather behaved itself. In the spring, the little flowers came out obediently in the meads, and the dew sparkled, and the birds sang. In the summer it was beautifully hot for no less than four months, and, if it did rain just enough for agricultural purposes, they managed to arrange it so that it rained while you were in bed. In the autumn the leaves flamed and rattled before the west winds, tempering their sad adieu with glory. And in the winter, which was confined by statute to two months, the snow lay evenly, three feet thick, but never turned into slush.

What do you mean?” she asked, though she knew. “What do you see?” In response, he buried a hand in her hair and pulled her down for a kiss that left their previous one in its shadow. His arm encircled her waist and she wrapped hers around his neck. Certainly, she thought, they would melt into a single being, like two wax figures left too close to the fire. Perhaps sensing that he need not urge her to kiss him, Marcel took his hand from her hair, dislodging its loose gathering as he did so. She felt a grazing across the fabric of her vest, briefly tracing the stitching of the peacock feathers, and finally a very surprising, but not unwelcome, grip to her bare calf. A protective instinct roared to life. “You mustn’t,” she said, breaking their kiss to look at the others in the room. If she and Marcel had attracted any of the patrons’ attention, they knew enough to glance away at that moment. “Do not mind them.” He continued his touch. “You are not the first woman to be seen in such a position. Our times are too desperate for modesty.” “I may not be the first woman. For you. But I’ve . . . I’ve never —” He kissed her again, irrevocably erasing the word never from her mind, drawing away only when distracted by a commotion at the door. “Mes amis! Mes amis!” He was a small, wiry man, and he jumped about with flailing arms, like a featherless bird. “You would not believe! A royal

It was very dark in there. The air smelled stagnant and sweaty and the drinks were so strong they fumed. But the women were magnificent, like enormous birds: feathery false eyelashes fluttering, tight, shiny dresses in peacock blue and canary yellow, the dim light reflecting off their sequins. Mayita and I stood out. We were puny, dressed in jeans and drab sweaters, little pigeons.

Unexpectedly self-conscious, I reached over, toying with the edge of my right wing. “I feel like a...peacock.” “Back to birds again, I see.” His expression softened. “Many believe peacocks are beautiful.” “How about a cockatoo?” Roth’s eyes lightened. “I’m sure there are some that find them beautiful, also.” “A pigeon?” He chuckled. “Layla, nothing about you reminds me of a pigeon.” “That’s good to know.

Don’t be afraid of it. It’s just a bird.” “Looks more like a monster.” Faisal watched it, still concerned, as it slowly stalked away. The peacock folded up its feathers and reopened them, shaking them so all those eyes on the end vibrated back and forth.