Monday Morning Wake-Up Call. Up!

Posted on by Live & Learn

lift of water,
bracing
smooth—
a lubricant
to be part of
this synchrony,
able to lean
on others, ride
the breastbone
of a bird,
without wings or
even a feather.

~ Diane DeCillis, from “To Lean”

Notes: Poem – Thank you Beth @ Alive on All Channels). Photo: via Mennyfox55.

34 thoughts on “Monday Morning Wake-Up Call. Up!”

  4. Lift off! Friday I saw a dozen Canadian Geese flying in circles over an intersection, the strangest thing. The Clash song came to mind: should I stay or should I go?

    1. Love this! Now I won’t get tune out of my head all day.

      Should I stay or should I go now?
      Should I stay or should I go now?
      If I go, there will be trouble
      And if I stay it will be double
      So come on and let me know

  6. Lovely. I’m always mystified by the fact that God’s favorite creature does not have the power to fly (outwardly, anyway). Thank God something does, though! Wouldn’t we be lost without their wingings?

    1. And that’s where he arrives in my imagination, my mad grandfather, a blur-boy of white singlet and shorts, short sharp hair, blue eyes, charging like a knight towards an invisible enemy. There’s no one watching. It’s just him after school on a grey afternoon. Blackbirds have settled on the playing fields. The bounce of his stride echoes in the pole. It’s not fibreglass but wood. The wind must think it’s a mast and he a sail too small for lifting. His pace quickens, his knees lift, the blackbirds turn. Down the cinderway he comes, crisp crunch-crunch-crunch, man on the end of a stick. Mouth pursed out and open he blows a wind-note with each step, whuu-whuu-whuu, announcing himself, warning the air that he is coming. His eyes are locked on the concrete trap. It’s his entranceway. The pole lowers, wavers slightly. A hard clack is the last sound Grandfather hears on earth. And here he is, Abraham in lift-off, his soul bubbling as he climbs, entering the upper air with perfect propulsion and ascension both. An instant and he no longer needs the pole. Hands it off. It falls to ground, a distant double-bounce off the solid world below. The blackbirds take fright, rise and glide to the goalmouth. Amazement blues my grandfather’s eyes. He’s at the apex of a triangle, a pale angular man-bird. His legs air-walk, his everything unearthed as he crosses the bar above us all. There is a giddy gulp of the Impossible and he sort of rolls over in the sky, pressed up against the iron clouds where God must be watching. His mind whites out. His body believes it is winged, has vaulted into some other way of being. Abraham Swain is Up There and Away, paddling the air above the ordinary and just for a moment praying: let me never fall to earth.

      – Niall Williams, History of Rain

  13. Fantastic match of this awesome wood duck in flight with the happy poem about the joy of birds surrounding us. Wonderful wake-up call, David, thank you.

  17. Had to hurry back to that sensational – and ever so well matched – photo to take another eye-ful of beauty!

    (and I can’t believe how many of your posts I missed, just between Monday and today – you’re nothing but proficient….)

      1. I would never do that – and you’re the only one who gets comments from me righ now. I had to declare a ‘pause’ from blog commenting, bad eyesight AND more important stuff to look after.

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