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Wednesday 12 August 2009

The Bird

This is some little thing I wrote and made into a booklet to send to Emily a while ago.



I stand up on a high hill. All is saturated in colour. Blue, green and yellow. My hair whips at my cheeks, playing in the wind, dancing and free. Above, there is a buzzard, screeching and swooping in great arcs. I watch it, thinking about how that bird is in-tune with the air and its body; efficient and lithe. The bird will grow old and die, but it will not get so old that it will no longer be able to swoop. It will die before then. If I am to live out an average life of a human I will grow old, and then older than old, and I will probably not be able to move very well by that time. Swooping will be out of the question. And I consider this fact and I come to a conclusion.

I am already old because I do not swoop. What is the point of having a body if I do not swoop? Unlike that bird up there I am disconnected from my body. It is an alien and strange thing to me. I do not know how to move it with poise and efficiency. So let me tell you this, bird in the sky: I will learn how to swoop and I will not be afraid of injuring myself because right now I am worse than injured; I am barely alive. I am old now, but I can learn to be young.

I will kick the moon. I will salto. I will butterfly twist. I will jump into the void. I will not become a buzzard, but I will become a human.





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