Language is like a bird.
However, it is no stuffed specimen in a glass case,
staring out into the rude world with beady, brown,
disconsolate eyes. Nor rarely that endangered, hardly
extant, species in a gilded cage, waiting patiently
for the day when the door may, by chance, be left wide open,
to allow it to escape…and find a soul-mate.
More, it is that truly wild spirit that needs
the freedom of the rustling air…and perishes without.
It maintains a desire to preen; to keep its beautiful
feathers continuously in shape; to exercise its pectoral muscles…and thereby strengthen them…so that one day, each day, it may launch itself into that glistening place of colours and shapes, shades and images; of forest, plain, marsh, mountain and the city streets.
To fly up high, so high, circle around, dive, wheel, bank, loop, veer, yaw, roll in the blueness of the sun-drenched heavens.. and then safely land…back to earth…
confident that it has achieved the impossible;
defied gravity; done what those around perhaps
thought could not be done. Proved to itself and all the world…that it has left the nest, and is here to stay, and that nothing…can ever be the same again. It has arrived.
Found and engaged others of its vibrant kind.
Lasted the test of time…and space.
Communicated its presence and its passions,
and gained the living, ethereal power…of existence.