The Gull glides
This is another of my 1970 efforts. I was standing on the cliffs watching a gull hanging in the air in front of me, effortlessly. It slowly turned its head and looked at me and then scanned the cliffs and sea below. I could see its feathers ruffling in the wind and the minor adjustments of its wings that enabled it to remain so still within the moving air but I could see that its mind was weighing up other things.
It was beautiful, so perfect; stream-lined and confident. It was totally in control, hanging over a drop that would have terrified the life out of me.
Millions of years of evolution had brought it to this culmination of perfection.
I was totally different to that bird. We had no way of communicating. It had different perspectives to me.
It slightly dipped a wing and drifted over the heads of the crowd standing on the cliff and then soared away in a big arc down to the sea.
I was imagining the skid of air across those wings that was supplying the lift and the almost mystical relationship between the wing and the air.
The Gull glides
The gull glides with the freedom to seek its own destiny.
It moves by instinct,
Beautifully through the sky.
Millions of years of perfection
Glimmer against the sun.
It has no beliefs that it would die for.
Hanging on the winds edge
Wings grip the sliding air
Suspended above the teeming crowds.
But I am the drifting skid of the edge of the wing
Slicing through the watery air.
Opher 1970
And did you read Jonathan Livingstone Seagull? Have some chameleons for you, only two seen though.
I loved Jonathan Livingston Seagull but I read it a long time ago in the 70s. I’ve found that some of my favourite books from back then have been rewritten. They are not as good as they used to be! How’s that one holding up?
I remember on the Algarve finding lots of chameleons in the camp-site among the pines. I love them!
Well there are still some chameleons around. I gave my old copy of Jonathan L. Seagull to my younger daughter and she loved it. Some books are for a certain age…
I’m glad to hear that the chameleons are hanging in there.
I might just hunt out my Jonathan Livingston. That would be interesting!