 in
the words of Alan Devoe:
"The poetry of the
earth, of course, is found in every created
thing. Our spirits when they’re tuned
to the right pitch of primal astonishment and
delight, discover enchantment in any sun-warmed
rock, any whisking October oak leaf, any shimmering
drop of rain on the nearest blade of dooryard
grass. This creation is one continuous and
inexhaustible glory; this garden is all magic.
Still, we’re likely, most of us, to grow
a little dulled… We tend to lose what
in a beautifully exact phrase we call our animal
spirits. It must be a very rare one of us,
though, who isn’t stirred by response
to birds.
Birds pluck at our attention with their tumultuous
songs and vivid colors. Our eyes are entranced
by their flight against the sky. Whatever
else we may neglect to notice, we are pretty
sure to be struck and stirred by the tumbling,
spring-bursting
“conk-err-ee” of red-winged blackbirds
in an April marsh, the honking clatter of
wild geese in their autumnal passing, the
bell-clear singing and the sweetly dappled
look of thrush in our summer-evening garden… Birds?
Why, we can scarcely look out of any window
and not see the flash of feathered wings.
Our poetry is full of birds. Our painting
is full of birds. Our language abounds with
figures taken from these winged animals."
—
This
Fascinating Animal World by Alan
Devoe
1951
McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., pgs. 117-118 |
)
