one bird seems to lead
that winged arc across the sky
none truly follow
reaching their destination
instinct their only compass
With a memory like a sieve, it’s ironic that, at times, once I have a word in my head I can’t get it out. Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday Challenge No. 127 – Synonyms Only offers the words
lead and follow. Once I started writing, those words were there to stay,
so consider this a non-response to her prompt.
Image source: cornell.edu
The order, and orders, the movement and movements, of the bird and the birds. A mystery in beauty, swooping or straight, broken or lined. How lovely is the earth and its creatures.
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ordered movement
mystery of birds
lined and not
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Both specific and synonymed – enjoyed the energy of birds heading “home”.
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Thanks, Jazz.
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I see and hear them every Spring returning home from southern climes. It’s exciting. First you hear the distictive Honk and then you spot the V-shaped group. I haven’t heard them yet this year. I look forward to this herald of Spring …….
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I was watching the pigeons swoop across Broadway today. Who give the signal? they all take off at once and curve around more or less together in several arcs and then land together on a building on the other side of the street. Your tanka is a perfect fit. (K)
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Or murmurations! Thank you. 🙂
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It never grows old watching them!
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There is something about lead and follow–it is hard to get those words out of my head, too.
A lovely “non-response,” Ken.
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Thanks, Merril. 🙂
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Often we have the instinct to follow – yet our own intuition can truly lead us if we listen. 🙂
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Understanding the direction you take most important.
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I know many would disagree with me, and they might even be right, but so far as I myself can see, it’s unnatural for humans to organize themselves into a hierarchy except in times of crisis, such as when facing a lion or a hostile band.
The most recent news from the sciences says we are 300,000 years old as a species. If that is true, my friend, then all our centuries of living in hierarchies have amounted to less than 2% of the time we have been on this earth. The first Sumerian city-states are only about 5,500 years in the past. Before them, we lived, and evolved to live, exclusively in small egalitarian groups.
At least, that’s the story the anthropologists have told me.
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Unfortunately, I think there will always be someone willing to dominate/subjugate those under egalitarian circumstances.
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I think that’s likely to be true nowadays.
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