The word was born in the blood, grew in the dark body, beating, and took flight through the lips and the mouth. Farther away and nearer still, still it came from dead fathers and from wondering races, from lands which had turned to stone, lands weary of their poor tribes, for when grief took to the roads the people set out and arrived and married new land and water to grow their words again. And so this is the inheritance; this is the wavelength which connects us with dead men and the dawning of new beings not yet come to light.
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Geng Lei was a famous archer of the state of Wei. One day while he was on an excursion outside the city with the King of Wei, he saw a bird circling in the sky. The King asked him to down the goose with an arrow. He answered: I don't have to use an arrow. I can just make the bird fall down from the sky with my arch. Do you have that marvellous skill? asked the King. Presently they saw the wild goose flying from the east. Geng Ying twanged the string of his bow and indeed the wild goose at once dropped to the ground in front of them. You're really a wonderful archer, said the King with approval. Geng Lei said, This is a wounded wild goose. From its desolate cry and tired flight you can see its wound has not yet healed. When it heard the twang of my bow-string, it thought it was again hit by an arrow and fell from the sky.
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A tide began to surge beneath the calm surface of Stephen's friendliness. This race and this country and this life produced me, he said. I shall express myself as I am. Try to be one of us, repeated Davin. In your heart you are an Irishman but your pride is too powerful. My ancestors threw off their language and took another, Stephen said. They allowed a handful of foreigners to subject them. Do you fancy that I am going to pay in my own life and person debts they made? What for? For our freedom, said Davin. No honourable and sincere man, said Stephen, has given up to you his life and his youth and his affections from the days of Wolfe Tone to those of Parnell, but you sold him to the enemy or failed him in need or reviled him and left him for another. And you invite me to be one of you. I'd see you damned first. They died for their ideals, Stevie, said Davin. Our day will come yet, believe me. Stephen, following his own thought, was silent for an instant... When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets ... Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.
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One could sit still and look at life from the air; that was it. And I was conscious again of the fundamental magic of flying, a miracle that has nothing to do with any of its practical purposes - speed, accessibility, and convenience - and will not change as they change. Looking down from the air that morning, I felt that stillness rested like a light over the earth. What motion there was took on a slow grace, like slow-motion pictures which catch the moment of outstretched beauty that one cannot see in life itself, so swiftly does it move. And if flying, like a glass-bottomed bucket, can give you that vision, that seeing eye, which peers down to the still world below the choppy waves - it will always remain magic.
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Don't stand beside my grave and weep, For I'm not there, I do not sleep, I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond's glint on snow, I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn's rain.
When you awaken in morning's hush, I am the swift uplifting rush, of quiet birds in circle flight, I am soft stars that shine at night, Don't stand beside my grave and cry, I am not there. I did not die.
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I wish I could write well enough to write about aircraft. Faulkner did it very well in Pylon but you cannot do something someone else has done though you might have done it if they hadn't.
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'Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise. 'But waft the angel on her flight with a paean of old days!...
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The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds -- how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives -- and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!
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But wherefore thou alone Wherefore with theeCame not all hell broke loose Is pain to themLess pain, less to be fled, or thou than theyLess hardy to endure Courageous chief,The first in flight from pain, hadst thou allegedTo thy deserted host this cause of flight,Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.
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The Eagle wasn't always the Eagle. The Eagle, before he became the Eagle, was Yucatangee, the Talker. Yucatangee talked and talked. It talked so much it heard only itself. Not the river, not the wind, not even the Wolf. The Raven came and said The Wolf is hungry. If you stop talking, you'll hear him. The wind too. And when you hear the wind, you'll fly. So he stopped talking. And became its nature, the Eagle. The Eagle soared, and its flight said all it needed to say.
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Mitch True love is hard to find, sometimes you think you have true love and then you catch the early flight home from San Diego and a couple of nude people jump out of your bathroom blindfolded like a goddamn magic show ready to double team your girlfriend...
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The result of what Kennedy did can be understood by analogy. It is as if he created a building named, 'A man on the moon in ten years,' and inside the building he put offices for all the various ideas, positions, notions and people that had to do with space flight. The first office inside the front door of the building in 1961 would have been called, 'it can't be done.' This office would have been inhabited by the skeptics and the cynics.A content or position is threatened by any opposite position. Given two opposing positions, only one can survive. On the other hand, a context gives space to, it literally allows, it even encourages, positions that are apparently the opposite. In fact, the most important position in a newly-created context is the position which appears to oppose the context.
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Fear of error which everything recalls to me at every moment of the flight of my ideas, this mania for control, makes men prefer reason's imagination to the imagination of the senses. And yet it is always the imagination alone which is at work.
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A plane is a bad place for an all-out sleep, but a good place to begin rest and recovery from the trip to the faraway places you've been, a decompression chamber between Here and There. Though a plane is not the ideal place really to think, to reassess or reevaluate things, it is a great place to have the illusion of doing so, and often the illusion will suffice.
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What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness! Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.
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What a cunning mixture of sentiment, pity, tenderness, irony surrounds adolescence, what knowing watchfulness Young birds on their first flight are hardly so hovered around.
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The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds -- how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives -- and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song
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All these things have you said of beauty. Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears. It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight. People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and your are the mirror.
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True love is hard to find. Sometimes you think you have true love, and then you catch the early flight home from San Diego, and a couple of nude people jump out of your bathroom blinfolded, like a goddamn magic show, ready to doubleteam your girlfriend.
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Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds, --and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of --Wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air... Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never lark or even eagle flew -- And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand, and touched the face of God
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Father, we thank you, especially for letting me fly this flight ... for the privilege of being able to be in this position, to be in this wondrous place, seeing all these many startling, wonderful things that you have created. (Prayer while orbiting the earth in a space capsule)
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The reasoning is, instead of taking it off-line for two years and spending a lot of money to return it to flight when it probably would fly only one time at the most, why spend that extra money, when you don't need to?
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Ricky Excuse me Honey, umm, where the drinks are concerned, is that a hidden tax Does that fall under complementary up front service as well or is that something you pay for Flight Attendent Oh no, no, they're complementary. Would you care for another one Ricky They're complementary Flight Attendent Yes. Ricky You bet your ass I would.
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'Death Watch. I wish I hadn't watched it, when I sprayed, From circling flight it fell upon my quilt. Its insect hands plucked at its mouth, assayed To take out toxin, and a human's guilt. Then wavering antenna met like hands in prayer. It shuddered some, but made no move to fly; Just bowed its head in posture of despair. Remorsefully I watched the creature die!'
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How blessings brighten as they take their flight!
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I have seized the light. I have arrested its flight.
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Seizing this rare opportunity, I motion to the airhostess and inform her that I could easily rid them of vast quantities of cumbersome beer and make this flight a lot safer for all concerned, to which she replies 'Sorry sir, we don't serve drinks until we are airborne.' Obviously she mistook my perfectly understandable English for some alien code and I was forced to reduce my instruction to monosylables which was surprisingly met with compliance. Having secured something liquid refreshment, I released the hostages and returned to my seat.
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A man should not leave this earth with unfinished business. He should live each day as if it was a pre-flight check. He should ask each morning, am I prepared to lift-off?
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But wherefore thou alone? Wherefore with thee Came not all hell broke loose? Is pain to them Less pain, less to be fled, or thou than they Less hardy to endure? Courageous chief, The first in flight from pain, hadst thou alleged To thy deserted host this cause of flight, Thou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.
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Up a narrow flight of stairs In a narrow little room, As I lie upon my bed In the early evening gloom. Impaled on my wall My eyes can dimly see The pattern of my life And the puzzle that is me.
From the moment of my birth To the instant of my death, There are patterns I must follow Just as I must breathe each breath. Like a rat in a maze The path before me lies, And the pattern never alters Until the rat dies.
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