Soaring Bird Quotes

The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.

The bird that would soar above the plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.

I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.

The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.

There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

Still I chase the wind        and float as a gentle breeze         up among the stars         then descending         as a bird down amidst the trees.

They say there were birds who used to soar through the skies like planes. It seems strange that a small animal could achieve anything as complex as human engineering, but the possibility is too enticing to ignore.

Close your eyes and let the mind expand. Let no fear of death or darkness arrest its course. Allow the mind to merge with Mind. Let it flow out upon the great curve of consciousness. Let it soar on the wings of the great bird of duration, up to the very Circle of Eternity.

It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don't spin it out too long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the ethereal bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness...

when I left her to-day, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. 'The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.' 

In every message she spoke of birds, of flight, of the world away. Even back then, she flew against what was presented to her. I wanted to cling to her wings and soar, no matter how intimidated I was.

My heart, the bird of the wilderness, has found its sky in your eyes. They are the cradle of the morning, they are the kingdom of the stars. My songs are lost in their depths. Let me but soar in that sky, in its lonely immensity. Let me but cleave its clouds and spread wings in its sunshine.

How clear, how lovely bright, How beautiful to sight Those beams of morning play; How heaven laughs out with glee Where, like a bird set free, Up from the eastern sea Soars the delightful day. To-day I shall be strong, No more shall yield to wrong, Shall squander life no more; Days lost, I know not how, I shall retrieve them now; Now I shall keep the vow I never kept before. Ensanguining the skies How heavily it dies Into the west away; Past touch and sight and sound Not further to be found, How hopeless under ground Falls the remorseful day.

No bird soars in a calm. WILBUR WRIGHT

and there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he forever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than the other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

We ate the birds. We ate them. We wanted their songs to flow up through our throats and burst out of our mouths, and so we ate them. We wanted their feathers to bud from our flesh. We wanted their wings, we wanted to fly as they did, soar freely among the treetops and the clouds, and so we ate them. We speared them, we clubbed them, we tangled their feet in glue, we netted them, we spitted them, we threw them onto hot coals, and all for love, because we loved them. We wanted to be one with them. We wanted to hatch out of clean, smooth, beautiful eggs, as they did, back when we were young and agile and innocent of cause and effect, we did not want the mess of being born, and so we crammed the birds into our gullets, feathers and all, but it was no use, we couldn’t sing, not effortlessly as they do, we can’t fly, not without smoke and metal, and as for the eggs we don’t stand a chance. We’re mired in gravity, we’re earthbound. We’re ankle-deep in blood, and all because we ate the birds, we ate them a long time ago, when we still had the power to say no.

The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who... looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space... on the infinite highway of the air.

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.

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.

However, this sceptic had one fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither a dogma, nor an idea, nor an art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras. Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras. To whom did this anarchical scoffer unite himself in this phalanx of absolute minds? To the most absolute. In what manner had Enjolras subjugated him? By his ideas? No. By his character. A phenomenon which is often observable. A sceptic who adheres to a believer is as simple as the law of complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves the light like the blind man. The dwarf adores the drum-major. The toad always has his eyes fixed on heaven. Why? In order to watch the bird in its flight. Grantaire, in whom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith soar in Enjolras. He had need of Enjolras. That chaste, healthy, firm, upright, hard, candid nature charmed him, without his being clearly aware of it, and without the idea of explaining it to himself having occurred to him.

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

Eagle's flight of loneliness soars so high Around its sigh, no more alone the sky Other birds remain away, clouds pass by Between shrouds of life and haze sun rays die

We see quite clearly that what happens to the nonhuman happens to the human. What happens to the outer world happens to the inner world. If the outer world is diminished in its grandeur then the emotional, imaginative, intellectual, and spiritual life of the human is diminished or extinguished. Without the soaring birds, the great forests, the sounds and coloration of the insects, the free-flowing streams, the flowering fields, the sight of the clouds by day and the stars at night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human.

I love to soar in the boundless sky. In the vast emptiness of the blue, my soul rejoices listening to the soundless music of the wind.

Degraded bird, I give you back your eyes forever, ascend now whither you are tossed; Forsake this wrist, forsake this rhyme; Soar, eat ether, see what has never been seen; depart, be lost, But climb.

I soared above the song birds And never heard them sing I lived my life in winter And then you brought the spring

If a bird believes it is an eagle long enough, it will eventually end up soaring like one.

I will drop into your chest like a vegetal ambrosia. I will be the grain that regenerates the cruelly plowed furrow. Poetry will be born of our intimate union. A god we shall create together, and we shall soar heavenward like sunbeams, perfumes, butterflies, birds, and all winged things.

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.

A dove struggling in a storm grows stronger than an eagle soaring in sunshine.

The bird that would soar above the plane of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.

The thousands small birds of January in their smooth soaring cloud finding the trees.

Out of the sea will rise Behemoth and Leviathan, and sail 'round the high-pooped galleys... Dragons will wander about the waste places, and the phoenix will soar from her nest of fire into the air. We shall lay our hands upon the basilisk, and see the jewel in the toad's head. Champing his gilded oats, the Hippogriff will stand in our stalls, and over our heads will float the Blue Bird singing of beautiful and impossible things, of things that are lovely and that never happen, of things that are not and that should be.

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.

It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb it leaped serene, speeding, sustained...

No bird can soar in a calm.

A bird without wings and a man without art are both condemned to wander in low places; they can never soar up to those unrivalled heights.

Outside, gray clouds stretched to infinity. Were my parents and Mikey out there somewhere? I imagined them soaring like birds through the heavens, and wondered how, in a sky so endless, could there be no room for me?

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.

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.

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.

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

The bird that would soar about the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings.

Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

Even Solomon, he says, “the man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain in the congregation of the dead.” Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee, as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gore is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. (pg 465)

Here are the things that do fill me: a night sky, endless and rammed with stars. The soaring of a soundtrack over a triumphal point in a film trailer, something inside me stirring like an animal. Dark roads and cosy cars, and imagining having somebody I loved enough to distract me in the front seat. Helplessness, sometimes. Anger, always.

We cannot learn to fly by following the tracks left by birds in the sand. We must find our own wings and soar.

Almost every single thing you hope publication will do for you is a fantasy, a hologram--it's the eagle on your credit card that only seems to soar.

The desire to fly is an idea handed down to us by our ancestors who... looked enviously on the birds soaring freely through space... on the infinite highway of the air.

But I am going to keep going. I am going to soar, and soar, and break away—up, up, up into the thundering noise and the wind, like a bird being sucked into the sky.

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.

The Fever Bird The fever bird sand out last night. I could not sleep, try as I might. My brain was split, my spirit raw. I looked into the garden, saw The shadow of the amaltas Shake slightly on the moonlit grass Unseen, the bird cried out its grief, Its lunacy, without relief: Three notes repeated closer, higher, Soaring, then sinking down like fire Only to breathe the night and soar, As crazed, as desperate, as before. I shivered in the midnight heat And smelt the sweat that soaked my sheet. And now tonight I hear again The call that skewers though my brain, The call, the brain-sick triple note-- A cone of pain stuck inits throat. I am so tired I could weep. Mad bird, for God's sake let me sleep Why do you cry like one possessed? When will you rest? When will you rest? Why wait each night till all but I Lie sleeping in the house, then cry? Why do you scream into my ear What no one else but I can hear?

And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.

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!

The child is born speaking the languages of birds; the child has horns and scales and wings; it has a beak; it has a cloven hoof. He is the sum of all creatures: the ones that swim, the ones that soar, the ones that leap, the ones that maze the earth with burrows.

for the bird that cannot soar, God has provided low branches.

Let your spirit soar to heaven with it whenever you use it, like the bird who once bore it.

I told you once you were like a bird and I was like a stone. If that is true, then you make this stone look to the sky and know what it is to soar above the heavens.

When I was young, I thought I was a bird at one time. Then they told me I can't fly, so I stopped flying.

Atop a mountain, one feels as close to the heavens as a bird soaring through the sky.

Love, that marvelous thing which had hitherto been like a great rosy-plumaged bird soaring in the splendors of poetic skies, was at last within her grasp.

He had forgotten how to soar upon the wings of his soul...

Years vanish. Months collapse. Time is like a tall building made of playing cards. It seems orderly until a strong gust of wind comes along and blows the whole thing skyward. Imagine it: an entire deck of cards soaring like a flock of birds.

A vision had seized hold of me, like the demented fury of a hound that has sunk its teeth into the leg of a deer carcass and is shaking and tugging at the downed game so frantically that the hunter gives up trying to calm him. It was the vision of a large steamship scaling a hill under its own steam, working its way up a steep slope in the jungle, while above this natural landscape, which shatters the weak and the strong with equal ferocity, soars the voice of Caruso, silencing all the pain and all the voices of the primeval forest and drowning out all birdsong. To be more precise: bird cries, for in this setting, left unfinished and abandoned by God in wrath, the birds do not sing; they shriek in pain, and confused trees tangle with one another like battling Titans, from horizon to horizon, in a steaming creation still being formed. Fog-panting and exhausted they stand in this unreal misery - and I, like a stanza in a poem written in an unknown foreign tongue, am shaken to the core.

WE DASH THE BLACK RIVER, ITS flats smooth as stone. Not a ship, not a dinghy, not one cry of white. The water lies broken, cracked from the wind. This great estuary is wide, endless. The river is brackish, blue with the cold. It passes beneath us blurring. The sea birds hang above it, they wheel, disappear. We flash the wide river, a dream of the past. The deeps fall behind, the bottom is paling the surface, we rush by the shallows, boats beached for winter, desolate piers. And on wings like the gulls, soar up, turn, look back.

I saw a bird soaring out of a cave above the open sea. And there was something terrifying about the bird and the endless waves over which it flew. Higher and higher it went and the sky turned to silver and then gradually the silver faded and the sky went dark. The darkness of evening nothing to fear, really, nothing. Blessed darkness. But it was falling gradually and inexorably over nothing save this one tiny creature cawing in the wind above a great wasteland that was the world. Empty caves, empty sands, empty sea.

Night after night, the waves are hoarse with repetition of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the shore; the sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds are on their trackless flight; the white arms beckon, in the moonlight, to the invisible country far away.

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

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about. Truth is, I don’t want to know. Some things are better left unsaid. I’d like to think they were singing about something so beautiful, it can’t expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was as if some beautiful bird had flapped into our drab little cage and made these walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

THE WHISTLER All of a sudden she began to whistle. By all of a sudden I mean that for more than thirty years she had not whistled. It was thrilling. At first I wondered, who was in the house, what stranger? I was upstairs reading, and she was downstairs. As from the throat of a wild and cheerful bird, not caught but visiting, the sounds war- bled and slid and doubled back and larked and soared. Finally I said, Is that you? Is that you whistling? Yes, she said. I used to whistle, a long time ago. Now I see I can still whistle. And cadence after cadence she strolled through the house, whistling. I know her so well, I think. I thought. Elbow and an- kle. Mood and desire. Anguish and frolic. Anger too. And the devotions. And for all that, do we even begin to know each other? Who is this I’ve been living with for thirty years? This clear, dark, lovely whistler?

Well, for instance, when I left her today, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said. 'The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings. It is a sad spectacle to see the weaklings bruised, exhausted, fluttering back to earth.

What did we talk about that has left me with an impression of wings and flashes, as of air displaced by the flight of a bird? Of swooping and soaring, of a faint iridescence subdued to the enfolding brightness of the day?

The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother--or father, or master, or what you will--to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.

What is it like to feel Tao? It is an effortless flowing, a sweeping momentum. It is like bird song soaring and gliding over a vast landscape. You can feel this in your life: Events will take on a perfect momentum, a glorious cadence. You can feel it in your body: The energy will rise up in you in a thrilling crescendo, setting your very nerves aglow. You can feel it in your spirit: You will enter a state of such perfect grace that you will resound over the landscape of reality like ephemeral bird song. When Tao comes to you in this way, ride it for all that you are worth. Don't interfere. Don't stop - that brings failure, alienation, and regret. Don't try to direct it. Let it flow and follow it. When the Tao is with you, put aside all other concerns. As long as the song lasts, follow. Just follow.

Then right before my eyes, she flew. She actually flew like a bird. No, she flew as a young girl might fly, or a woman or a man, if people were meant to fly. She soared through the air. And that changed the course of my life forever.

An eagle soaring above a sheer cliff, where I suppose its nest is, makes another striking show of life, and helps to bring to mind the other people of the so-called solitude—deer in the forest caring for their young; the strong, well-clad, well-fed bears; the lively throng of squirrels; the blessed birds, great and small, stirring and sweetening the groves; and the clouds of happy insects filling the sky with joyous hum as part and parcel of the down-pouring sunshine.

Sophie raised her head. Light filtering through the trees dappled her face. “Hawk.” Charlotte looked up as well. A bird of prey soared above the treetops, circling around them. “It’s dead,” Sophie said. “George is guiding it. He is very powerful.”The realization washed over Charlotte in a cold gush of embarrassment. “Is George spying on Richard and me?” “Always,” Sophie said. “All those perfect manners are a sham. He spies on everyone and everything. Declan hasn’t been able to conduct a single business meeting in the past year without George’s knowing all the details. He does let go when you make love. He is a prude.” “‘Prude’ is a coarse word. He has a sense of tact,” Charlotte corrected before she caught herself. “A sense of tact,” Sophie repeated, tasting the words. “Thank you. The other one is somewhere around here, too.” “The other one?” Sophie surveyed the woods. “I can smell you, Jack!” “No, you can’t,” a distant voice answered

From ancient times and into the Middle Ages, man had dreamed of taking to the sky, of soaring into the blue like the birds. One savant in Spain in the year 875 is known to have covered himself with feathers in the attempt. Others devised wings of their own design and jumped from rooftops and towers—some to their deaths—in Constantinople, Nuremberg, Perugia.

And at last, the wicked Queen's spell was broken, and the young woman, whom circumstance and cruelty had trapped in the body of a bird, was released from her cage. The cage door opened and the cuckoo bird fell, fell, fell, until finally her stunted wings opened, and she found that she could fly. With the cool sea breeze of her homeland buffeting the underside of her wings, she soared over the cliff edge and across the ocean. Towards a new land of hope, and freedom, and life. Towards her other half. Home.

Throughout his life--as a child, poor and meanly treated, as a foot-loose youth, as an imprisoned man--the yellow bird, huge and parrot-faced, had soared across Perry's dreams, an avenging angel who savaged his enemies or, as now, rescued him in moments of mortal danger.

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.

As well as fly into the strong wind of a storm, rather than having to avoid it and head to the shore like other birds would do,” Marisol said, snapping wrinkles from a blanket she found in the crate. “It’s safer for them to fly toward the storm than away from it, as counterintuitive as that may seem to us. But they can soar for thousands of kilometers without ever touching land, and they know their strengths. They lean into them in times of trouble.

I know you find your banishment from court hard, but, believe me, it could be much, much worse. This is not a true prison. You can come out here to the garden and see the sky and listen to the birds singing and the bees humming in the flowers. You can work with your own two hands and see things you have planted grow and bring beauty to the world. You can eat what you have grown, and that is a joy too. Then there is the music and the singing, which is a balm to the soul, and the convent itself is filled with beauty, the soaring pillars and the windows glowing like jewels and the embroidered tapestries.

This story takes place a half a billion years ago-an inconceivably long time ago, when this planet would be all but recognizable to you. Nothing at all stirred on the land except the wind and the dust. Not a single blade of grass waved in the wind, not a single cricket chirped, not a single bird soared in the sky. All these things were tens of millions of years away in the future. But of course there was an anthropologist on hand. What sort of world would it be without an anthropologist? He was, however a very depressed and disillusioned anthropologist, for he'd been everywhere on the planet looking for someone to interview, and every tape in his knapsack was as blank as the sky. But one day as he was moping alongside the ocean he saw what seemed to be a living creature in the shallows off shore. It was nothing to brag about, just sort of a squishy blob, but it was the only prospect he'd seen in all his journeys, so he waded out to where it was bobbing in the waves. He greeted the creature politely and was greeted in kind, and soon the two of them were good friends. The anthropologist explained as well as he could that he was a student of life-styles and customs, and begged his new friend for information of this sort, which was readily forthcoming. ‘And now’, he said at last, ‘I'd like to get on tape in your own words some of the stories you tell among yourselves.’ ‘Stories?’ the other asked. ‘You know, like your creation myth, if you have one.’ ‘What is a creation myth?’ the creature asked. ‘Oh, you know,’ the anthropologist replied, ‘the fanciful tale you tell your children about the origins of the world.’ Well, at this, the creature drew itself up indignantly- at least as well as a squishy blob can do- and replied that his people had no such fanciful tale. ‘You have no account of creation then?’ ‘Certainly we have an account of creation,’ the other snapped. ‘But its definitely not a myth.’ ‘Oh certainly not,’ the anthropologist said, remembering his training at last. ‘Ill be terribly grateful if you share it with me.’ ‘Very well,’ the creature said. ‘But I want you to understand that, like you, we are a strictly rational people, who accept nothing that is not based on observation, logic, and scientific method.’ ‘"Of course, of course,’ the anthropologist agreed. So at last the creature began its story. ‘The universe,’ it said, ‘was born a long, long time ago, perhaps ten or fifteen billion years ago. Our own solar system-this star, this planet, and all the others- seem to have come into being some two or three billion years ago. For a long time, nothing whatever lived here. But then, after a billion years or so, life appeared.’ ‘Excuse me,’ the anthropologist said. ‘You say that life appeared. Where did that happen, according to your myth- I mean, according to your scientific account.’ The creature seemed baffled by the question and turned a pale lavender. ‘Do you mean in what precise spot?’ ‘No. I mean, did this happen on land or in the sea?’ ‘Land?’ the other asked. ‘What is land?’ ‘Oh, you know,’ he said, waving toward the shore, ‘the expanse of dirt and rocks that begins over there.’ The creature turned a deeper shade of lavender and said, ‘I cant imagine what you're gibbering about. The dirt and rocks over there are simply the lip of the vast bowl that holds the sea.’ ‘Oh yes,’ the anthropologist said, ‘I see what you mean. Quite. Go on.’ ‘Very well,’ the other said. ‘For many millions of centuries the life of the world was merely microorganisms floating helplessly in a chemical broth. But little by little, more complex forms appeared: single-celled creatures, slimes, algae, polyps, and so on.’ ‘But finally,’ the creature said, turning quite pink with pride as he came to the climax of his story, ‘but finally jellyfish appeared!

To make matters worse, some of the books had actually become migratory. In the nineteenth century Brakebills had appointed a librarian with a highly Romantic imagination who had envisioned a mobile library in which books fluttered from shelf to shelf like birds, reorganizing themselves spontaneously under their own pwer in response to searches. For the first few months the effect was sadi to have been quite dramatic. A painteding the scned survived as a mural behind the circulation desk, with enormaous atlases soaring around the place like condors. But the system turned out to be totally impractical. The wear and tear o the spines alone was too costly, and the books were horribly disobedient. The librarian had imagined he could summon a given book to perch on his hand just by shouting out its call number, but in actuality they were just too willful, and some were actively predatory. The librarian was swiftly dposed, and his successor set about domesticating the books again, but even now there were stragglers, notably in Swiss History and Architecture 300-1399, that stubbornly flapped around near the ceiling. Once in a while an entire sub—sub-category that had long been thought safely dormant would take wing with an indescribably papery susurrus.

I might have felt unimportant pitted against the awesome might of the mountains. I did not. Rather, on that mountain top I found something important that I had never known before: an awareness of a vital connection between me and the Authority behind all this beauty. I remembered my conversation with Dr. MacNeill that afternoon in my schoolroom. He had said that he believed in some “starter-force” but that he could not credit a loving God with concern for individuals. But the “starter-force” behind the magnificence displayed before my wondering eyes had an authority behind it that could be no abstraction, for it had immediacy—known and felt. Now I knew how to answer the doctor’s question. Call this what you might—“starter-force,” “God,” “Father”—it was personal all right. It thrust deep into me. It pulled. And it insisted that life was precious—all of life—Fairlight and I, and every bird and every squirrel and every tree reaching through its forest cover for the light. It cried that all effort was worthwhile; that doubt and fear and discouragement were a desecration of beauty, that hope was always right. It insisted that small achievement was not enough; that hopes and dreams must be large enough to stand up beside those soaring summits and not once bow their heads in shame.

From the inaccessible mountains, across the desert which no mortal foot has trod, far as the confines of the unknown ocean, breathes the spirit of the eternal Creator; and every atom to which he has given existence finds favour in his sight. Ah, how often at that time has the flight of a bird, soaring above my head, inspired me with the desire of being transported to the shores of the immeasurable waters, there to quaff the pleasures of life from the foaming goblet of the Infinite, and to partake, if but for a moment even, with the confined powers of my soul, the beatitude of that Creator who accomplishes all things in himself, and through himself! My

If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense.  Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre?  Don’t trouble yourself to answer—I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious.  The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother—or father, or master, or what you will—to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now.  I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high.  You are still bent on going?

And having given up on life, the Captain suddenly began to live. A great mad joy surged through him. This emotion, coming as unexpectedly as the plunge of the horse when he had broken away, was one that the Captain had never experienced. His eyes were glassy and half-open, as in delirium, but he saw suddenly as he had never seen before. The world was a kaleidoscope, and each of the multiple visions which he saw impressed itself on his mind with burning vividness. On the ground half-buried in the leaves there was a little flower, dazzling white and beautifully wrought. A thorny pine cone, the flight of a bird in the blue windy sky, a fiery shaft of sunshine in the green gloom - these the Captain saw as though for the first time in his life. He was conscious of the pure keen air and the felt the marvel of his own tense body, his labouring heart, and the miracle of blood, muscle, nerves, and bones. The Captain knew no terror now; he soared the rare level of consciousness where the mystic feels that the earth is he and that he is the earth. Clinging crabwise to the runaway horse, there was a grin of rapture on his bloody mouth.

In The Garret Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, All fashioned and filled, long ago, By children now in their prime. Four little keys hung side by side, With faded ribbons, brave and gay When fastened there, with childish pride, Long ago, on a rainy day. Four little names, one on each lid, Carved out by a boyish hand, And underneath there lieth hid Histories of the happy band Once playing here, and pausing oft To hear the sweet refrain, That came and went on the roof aloft, In the falling summer rain. 'Meg' on the first lid, smooth and fair. I look in with loving eyes, For folded here, with well-known care, A goodly gathering lies, The record of a peaceful life-- Gifts to gentle child and girl, A bridal gown, lines to a wife, A tiny shoe, a baby curl. No toys in this first chest remain, For all are carried away, In their old age, to join again In another small Meg's play. Ah, happy mother! Well I know You hear, like a sweet refrain, Lullabies ever soft and low In the falling summer rain. 'Jo' on the next lid, scratched and worn, And within a motley store Of headless dolls, of schoolbooks torn, Birds and beasts that speak no more, Spoils brought home from the fairy ground Only trod by youthful feet, Dreams of a future never found, Memories of a past still sweet, Half-writ poems, stories wild, April letters, warm and cold, Diaries of a wilful child, Hints of a woman early old, A woman in a lonely home, Hearing, like a sad refrain-- 'Be worthy, love, and love will come,' In the falling summer rain. My Beth! the dust is always swept From the lid that bears your name, As if by loving eyes that wept, By careful hands that often came. Death canonized for us one saint, Ever less human than divine, And still we lay, with tender plaint, Relics in this household shrine-- The silver bell, so seldom rung, The little cap which last she wore, The fair, dead Catherine that hung By angels borne above her door. The songs she sang, without lament, In her prison-house of pain, Forever are they sweetly blent With the falling summer rain. Upon the last lid's polished field-- Legend now both fair and true A gallant knight bears on his shield, 'Amy' in letters gold and blue. Within lie snoods that bound her hair, Slippers that have danced their last, Faded flowers laid by with care, Fans whose airy toils are past, Gay valentines, all ardent flames, Trifles that have borne their part In girlish hopes and fears and shames, The record of a maiden heart Now learning fairer, truer spells, Hearing, like a blithe refrain, The silver sound of bridal bells In the falling summer rain. Four little chests all in a row, Dim with dust, and worn by time, Four women, taught by weal and woe To love and labor in their prime. Four sisters, parted for an hour, None lost, one only gone before, Made by love's immortal power, Nearest and dearest evermore. Oh, when these hidden stores of ours Lie open to the Father's sight, May they be rich in golden hours, Deeds that show fairer for the light, Lives whose brave music long shall ring, Like a spirit-stirring strain, Souls that shall gladly soar and sing In the long sunshine after rain

The classes changed, with years, from wide soaring poems in flight to hushed talk about Jonathan before and after practice; to long involved recitations on the sand about the Divine One, with no flying ever done by anybody. Fletcher and the other students of Jonathan were at turns puzzled and correctful and firm and furious at the change, but they were helpless to stop it. They were honored, and worse—revered, but they were no longer heard, and the birds who practiced flying were fewer and fewer.

... he slipped in and out of himself, testing which disguise to use. He knew it had to be his most clever. The Sisters were too astute for his usual chicanery. He flapped his wings, then soared. The shape of an eagle, useful for fast travel across worlds, but only temporary. Not convincing enough to hide his true identity. ... He pushed out of the eagle skin and leaped away from the horde of birds, springing into the sky. Into nothingness. Instead of transforming into another creature, he hovered in between. Dangling on the mouth of wind. He rumbled with pleasure, at his own cleverness, born out of accident and indecision: he had become pure air. Without effort, he whooshed past the threshold into the cave, into the bark of the Great Tree, winding cleverly under and over and through a maze of roots and rough stone, past every trick and trap the Sisters had set. He delighted at the speed at which he travelled, catching himself just in time, before his enthusiasm revealed the disguise. Slowing impulse to a mere draft, sucking into himself, he reached the very heart of the Norns’ lair. The Great Hall of Time.

When I saw them in Africa, I thought these birds were the greatest fliers of all. Hardly beating their wings, they fly for hours, swooping upwards on air currents with no sign of physical effort. But when they land, they pitch forward on their stubby legs without stopping. They skid along on their bellies, their necks straining to absorb the shock of the landing. Their beaks dig into the sand and they collide with anything in their path. Quite often they break their wings or beaks or spines and remain for the rest of their lives in the scrubby thickets not far from where they crash. The crippled birds sit there blind, paralyzed or in shock, and struggle slowly back and forth to their nests. Some hop on one leg, some drag their crippled wings behind them like broken umbrellas. I wonder whether they ever envy their brothers soaring in the air or if they're glad to be grounded and past their trial.

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

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...

Mum bought me �kite for my sixth birthday. It was beautiful. Snowy white with � long tail of ribbons. She held the string, and I� ran and ran as fast as I �could, but it kept dropping to� clumsy heap on the ground. When� I got tired Mum took over, holding it high above her head and running and running until, all at once, �sudden wonderful gust of wind took the kite soaring high, high into the sky, so� I had to squint to see it. “Hold on, Rosie!” Mum had called. “Hold tight!” And �I did, gripping the string with all my might as the kite danced high up above, gleaming bright white against the blue sky, its ribbons sparkling in the sunlight as it flew, soaring and dipping like �bird, forever pulling at the string in my hand —higher, higher — tugging to get free. Then� I let go.The string snapped from my grip and was gone. Mum raced after it,but it was too fast,soaring up,up and away, higher than the trees. She scooped me up in �hug and told me it was all right, she'd buy me another one. But� I didn't want another one. That was my kite,and it was free. I’d let it go.It’d wanted so much to be free that I just couldn't hold on, couldn’t hold it down.� I smiled as I� watched it whirl away — above the trees, above the birds, above the clouds, sparkling into the heavens, dancing free. It was the most beautiful thing I �have ever seen.

Corrupting, there, forsaken, becoming, already, nothing. "And thy corpse shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto the beasts of the earth, and no man shall frighten them away to think that this is one of God's most terrible curses. But consider it carefully. No sepulchre. No cremation. No obsequies. Becoming meat for someone else's teeth, said Lorimer with some of his past passion. "Can you imagine? Can you imagine what a relief? Will we ever dare to look at a body without the shroud of superstition, naked, like it truly is? Matter, and nothing more. Preoccupied with the perpetuity of our departed souls, we have forgotten that, on the contrary, it is our carcasses and our flesh that make us immortal. I am fairly confident they didn't bury him so that his transmigration into bird and beast would be swifter. Never mind memorials, relics, mausoleums, and other vain preservations from corruption and oblivion. What greater tribute than to be feasted upon by one's fellow creatures? What monument could be nobler than the breathing tomb of a coyote or the soaring urn of a vulture? What preservation more dependable? What resurrection more literal? This is true religion-knowing there is a bond among all living things. Having understood this, there is nothing to mourn, because even though nothing can ever be retained, nothing is ever lost. Can you imagine?" "Lorimer asked again. "The relief. The freedom.

The Portal Potion Success! After weeks and weeks of trying, I’ve finally discovered the correct ingredients for the potion I’d hoped to create for my son! With just a few drops, the potion turns any written work into a portal to the world it describes. Even with my ability to create portals to and from the Otherworld, I never thought it would be possible to create a substance that allowed me passage to any world I wished. My son will get to see the places and meet the characters he’s spent his whole childhood dreaming about! And best of all, I’ll get to watch his happiness soar as it happens! The ingredients are much simpler than I imagined, but difficult to obtain. Their purposes are more metaphysical than practical, so it took some imagination to get the concoction right. The first requirement is a branch from the oldest tree in the woods. To bring the pages to life, I figured the potion would need the very thing that brought the paper to life in the first place. And what else has more life than an ancient tree? The second ingredient is a feather from the finest pheasant in the sky. This will guarantee your potion has no limits, like a bird in flight. It will ensure you can travel to lands far and wide, beyond your imagination. The third component is a liquefied lock and key that belonged to a true love. Just as this person unlocked your heart to a life of love, it will open the door of the literary dimensions your heart desires to experience. The fourth ingredient is two weeks of moonlight. Just as the moon causes waves in the ocean, the moonlight will stir your potion to life. Last, but most important, give the potion a spark of magic to activate all the ingredients. Send it a beam of joy straight from your heart. The potion does not work on any biographies or history books, but purely on works that have been imagined. Now, I must warn about the dangers of entering a fictional world: 1. Time only exists as long as the story continues. Be sure to leave the book before the story ends, or you may disappear as the story concludes. 2. Each world is made of only what the author describes. Do not expect the characters to have any knowledge of our world or the Otherworld. 3. Beware of the story’s villains. Unlike people in our world or the Otherworld, most literary villains are created to be heartless and stripped of all morals, so do not expect any mercy should you cross paths with one. 4. The book you choose to enter will act as your entrance and exit. Be certain nothing happens to it; it is your only way out. The

Inside the castle hovered a shadow version of him, alone, watching this full, well-lit house from the other’s emptiness. Looking through the glass, he was divided in two. He saw himself with the family around him. Glad of it. Almost proud. As a parent might be. He was his own parent. He’d learned to be alone, walking. And it was still good now and then. For thought. For recognition. But being alone was also a closed loop. A loop with a slipknot, say. The loop could be small or large, but it always returned to itself. You had to untie the knot, finally. Open the loop and then everything sank in. And everyone. Then you could see what was true—that separateness had always been the illusion. A simple trick of flesh. The world was inside you after that. Because, after all, you were made of two people only at the very last instant. Before that, of a multiplication so large it couldn’t be fathomed. Back and back in time. A tree in a forest of trees, where men grew from apes and birds grew from dinosaurs. The topmost branches were single cells. And even those cells were “ And even those cells were not the start, for they drew life from the atmosphere. The air. And the vapor. Suspended. It was the fear and loneliness that came in waves that often stopped him from remembering the one thing. The one thing and the greatest thing. Frustrating: he could only ever see it for a second before he lost sight of it again. Released his grip. Let it slip away into the vague background. But it had to be held close, the tree. In the dark, when nothing else was sure, the soaring tree sheltered you. Almost the only thing you had to see before you slept. How you came not from a couple or a few but from infinity. So you had no beginning. And you would never end.

The Meaning of Birds Of the genesis of birds we know nothing, save the legend they are descended from reptiles: flying, snap-jawed lizards that have somehow taken to air. Better the story that they were crab-apple blossoms or such, blown along by the wind; time after time finding themselves tossed from perhaps a seaside tree, floated or lifted over the thin blue lazarine waves until something in the snatch of color began to flutter and rise. But what does it matter anyway how they got up high in the trees or over the rusty shoulders of some mountain? There they are, little figments, animated---soaring. And if occasionally a tern washes up greased and stiff, and sometimes a cardinal or a mockingbird slams against the windshield and your soul goes oh God and shivers at the quick and unexpected end to beauty, it is not news that we live in a world where beauty is unexplainable and suddenly ruined and has its own routines. We are often far from home in a dark town, and our griefs are difficult to translate into a language understood by others. We sense the downswing of time and learn, having come of age, that the reluctant concessions made in youth are not sufficient to heat the cold drawn breath of age. Perhaps temperance was not enough, foresight or even wisdom fallacious, not only in conception but in the thin acts themselves. So our lives are difficult, and perhaps unpardonable, and the fey gauds of youth have, as the old men told us they would, faded. But still, it is morning again, this day. In the flowering trees the birds take up their indifferent, elegant cries. Look around. Perhaps it isn't too late to make a fool of yourself again. Perhaps it isn't too late to flap your arms and cry out, to give one more cracked rendition of your singular, aspirant song.