As the Birds Do
- Ashley Bradford
- Feb 18
- 3 min read
Tiny prints patter across the tree limbs, as they carry the weight of the white sheet layered elegantly across it.
A bird skips along the arms of the tree, its family on a nearby branch.
Its feathers ruffled, as it bears the cold.
A nest carefully constructed, a home for warmth and safety.
It aims to build.
The snowflakes fall as the bird settles into his home.
Wondering when winter will end.
Do we carelessly flitter about a tree branch, or do we concisely carry the twigs and the burden of our own survival?
A bird wonders not how the fox or the rabbit makes it way, it focuses on finding its own.
The bird needs no burrow as the fox or the rabbit does, for it belongs high in the sky in the tips of the trees, their arms extended as fingertips towards the skies.
A bird needs no growl or a rabbit's cry, a soft chirp and a spring song are enough for the meek creature of humble stature.
The bird is content with itself. It is where it belongs.
It is blessed with wings, so it may soar to sunnier skies,
It is blessed with a song that only those who take the time to hear its soft voice may do so.
It is blessed to be a bird.
As the birds do, be you.
But who are you?
A Minor Bird
I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day:
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly be in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.
-Robert Frost
Be like the bird who, in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings.
-Victor Hugo
Winter perches like a bird.
Wings tucked in so the soul is heard.
-Angie Weiland-Crosby
The Snowbird
When all the ground with snow is white,
The merry snowbird comes,
And hops about with great delight
To find the scattered crumbs.
How glad he seems to get to eat
A piece of cake or bread!
He wears no shoes upon his feet,
Nor hat upon his head.
But happiest is he, I know,
Because no care with bars,
Keeps him from walking on the snow
And printing it with stars.
-Frank D. Sherman
We lose our Souls, if we lose the
Experience of the Forest, the Butterflies,
the Song of the Birds, if we can't see the Stars at Night.
-Thomas Berry
When piped a tiny voice hard by,
Gay and polite, a cheerful cry,
Chic-chic-a-dee-de! saucy note
Out of sound heart and merry throat,
As if it said, 'Good day, good sir!'
Fine afternoon, old passenger!
Happy to meet you in these places,
Where January brings few faces.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped
and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
-Maya Angelou
The air is crowded with birds,
Beautiful, Tender, Intelligent Birds
To whom life is a song.
-George Henry Lewes
''No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.''
-William Blake
A bird does not sing because it has an answer.
It sings because it has a song.
-Chinese Proverb
It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds.
-Aesop
''A bird is not afraid of a branch breaking because its trust is not on the branch, but on its wings.
-Unknown