Great Showdowns: Lady vs Birds

-Scott C (more showdowns here)

What David Remembered

If you think [Peter Pan] was the only baby who ever wanted to escape, it shows how completely you have forgotten your own young days. When David heard this story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to escape, but I told him to think back hard, pressing his hands to his temples, and when he had done this hard, and even harder, he distinctly remembered a youthful desire to return to the tree-tops, and with that memory came others, as that he had lain in bed planning to escape as soon as his mother was asleep, and how she had once caught him half-way up the chimney. All children could have such recollections if they would press their hands hard to their temples, for, having been birds before they were human, they are naturally a little wild during the first few weeks, and very itchy at the shoulders, where their wings used to be. So David tells me.

-J. M. Barrie, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens

Free and Strong and Natural

The trouble with folks like Brownie is they hold their life in like a bakebean fart at a Baptist cookout and only let it slip out sideways a little at a time when they think there’s nobody noticing. Now that’s the last thing on earth the Almighty intended. He intended all the life a man’s got inside him, he should live it out just as free and strong and natural as a bird.

-Frederick Buechner, Treasure Hunt

Bird by Bird

…Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write, which was due the next day. We were out at our family cabin in Bolinas, and he was at the kitchen table close to tears, surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

-Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

The Windhover: To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! And the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: sheer plod makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

-Gerard Manly Hopkins

Camp Songs #7

Way up in the sky
The little birds fly
While down in the nest
The little birds rest

With a wing on the left
And a wing on the right
The little birds sleep
All through the night

Shhhh. THEY'RE SLEEPING!

The bright sun comes up
The dew falls away
"Good morning, good morning"
The little birds say

Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.

The Ballad of Billy M'Caw

Oh, how well I remember the old Bull and Bush
Where we used to go down of a Sattaday night,
Where, when anything happened, it came with a rush,
For the boss, Mr. Clark, he was very polite

A very nice house, from basement to garret
A very nice house. Ah, but it was the parret,
The parret, the parret named Billy M'Caw,
Who brought all those folk to the bar.
Ah! He was the life of the bar.

Of a Sattaday night, we was all feeling bright,
And Lily LaRose, the barmaid that was,

She'd say 'Billy! Billy M'Caw! Come give us,
Come give us a dance on the bar.'
And Billy would dance on the bar,
And Billy would dance on the bar.
And then we'd feel balmy, in each eye a tear,
And emotion would make us all order more beer.

Lily, she was a girl what had brains in her head;
She wouldn't have nothick, no not that much said.
If it came to an argument, or a dispute,
She would settle it offhand with the toe of her boot

Or as likely as not put her fist through your eye.
But when we was happy and just a bit dry,
Or when we was thirsty, and just a bit sad,
She would rap on the bar with that corkscrew she had

And say 'Billy! Billy M'Caw!
Come give us a tune on your pastoral flute!'
And Billy'd strike up on his pastoral flute,
And Billy'd strike up on his pastoral flute.
And then we'd feel balmy, in each eye a tear,
And emotion would make us all order more beer.

'Billy! Billy M'Caw!
Come give us a tune on your moley guitar!'
And Billy'd strike up on his moley guitar,
And Billy'd strike up on his moley guitar.
And then we'd feel balmy, in each eye a tear,
And emotion would make us all order more beer.

'Billy! Billy M'Caw!
Come give us a tune on your moley guitar!'
Ah! He was the life of the bar.

-T. S. Eliot

Cottleston Pie

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly
Ask me a riddle, and I reply:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie
A fish can't whistle and neither can I
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie
Why does a chicken?--I don't know why
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie

-A. A. Milne