See the buzzard soar, the swallow skim a lake, the kestrel hover; <br />observe the skylark pouring his little heart out in the sky; <br />admire the flapwing, lapwing flight of a flock of plover; <br />what birds do is fly. <br /> <br />At least they oughter, <br />because once birds get onto the water <br />they can't help looking absurd <br />- except the swan, for which nobody I know has an unkind word, <br />or, mostly, seagulls, <br />who fly with almost the grace of eagulls, <br />and in their silvery uniforms are impeccably neat, <br />even if my admiration for their manners is incomplete - <br />but, shucks, <br />look at ducks. <br /> <br />And for something really silly, <br />shaggy-winged, fluffy-headed, and disproportionately neck-and-bill-y, <br />consider the pelican, for heaven's sake. <br />Surely Nature made a mistake, <br />or left the designing of it to a particularly inept committee, <br />it's so unpretty. <br />But once in the air he can soar like a buzzard, though maybe lower, <br />and skim over the waves with more perfect control than a swallow, and slower, <br />and dive for a fish like a living javelin, that clumsy pelican. <br />By helican! <br /> <br />No, for a shapeless, hapless caricature, created to be comical, <br />the epitome of what a bird shouldn't be, the penguin must be the most epitomical. <br />As he does his impression of a Charlie Chaplin waiter, <br />you know he'll fall off the ice sooner or later. <br />But before a warning can escape your lips <br />he trips <br />(and slips) . <br />Then, as he slides beneath the waves, ah! see the happy penguin fly, <br />a graceful bird in his bluegreen underwater sky. <br /> <br /> ******* <br /> <br />(The last section owes most of its images to a class of 8-year-olds I once taught.)<br /><br />Paul Hansford<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-flight-of-birds/
