The Sea Bird
Soaring over an open sea. Floating on warm currents of air that carry me far across the water. Catching a downdraft to take me to the sparkling water below to dive beneath the diamond filled surface for a sliver of quicksilver. These thoughts, these feelings fill my fantasies and carry me along to distant lands. What might a feathered traveler see on its journey from one side of the world to another?
Sunbeams and clouds, moonlight and starshine, lone birds and flocks. Schools of mirrored fish undulating through the water catching light upon their backs and reflecting it back. Bits of land with living green and earthy brown surrounded by liquid blue and glistening lights. Large islands, small islands, single islands and groups of islands. Soon below is nothing but the vibrant greens and warm browns of a continent. Dotted here and there with gray, ugly cement and stone structures that spread like diseased creatures sending tendrils out over the living land, choking the life from it.
And yet if flying across this land of manmade ugliness at night, the bird sees something quite different. It more resembles the stars in the sky than the monster of the day. Living, undulating rivers of light ... first thick bands of them and solid lines of glittering gold. Then the wide expansive rivers narrow and the golden lights trickle to thin dotted lines and soon all there is to see is an occasional firefly-like light moving alone in the darkness. There are islands of light, faint at the edges and brighter as you reach the interior. It is a fairyland that lies below, but only at night and only if not visited.
The sea bird flies on across the vastness of the continent till he reaches yet another blue and refreshing ocean where whales sing and dolphins play. Where storms spread their dark clouds and winds. Where sun shines and birds sing. And fish glitter again. Till yet another vast land much like the other ... not worth worrying about. Fly on. Fly ON.
And there it is at last ... home. The ocean and the island upon which he was born. As yet untouched by man, it is a paradise. The sun. The breeze. The liquid blue with diamonds dancing on its surface and slivers of quicksilver beneath the surface. Home.
July 3, 2006
Mickey Clees, aka Rosalyn
