Brian Gooze

You ever stare at a bird for long enough to watch it take off into flight? I have. Sometimes I wonder what I must look like to the people who walk by. They probably find it strange. “What did that bird do,” they might think, “that would make this guy glare at it so?”

But I’m not angry at the bird. I just like the way birds move. This way and that; I wonder how they can seem so sure of themself. Because they always ending up turning, changing their mind. Peck and turn. This way and that. And suddenly, they stop. Turn their head. Stop again. And then they fly.

You can hear the air move around them, if you listen for it. Sometimes the air makes a “fffth” sound. Sometimes it makes a “whoosh” sound. Either way, the sound that happens isn’t about the bird anymore. It’s about the air surrounding the bird. It’s directed this way and that. Focused into angles and pushed into vectors.

Reducing the magic of flight into something so mechanical could seem wrong, perhaps. Talking about air the same way someone talks about machinery. How can something so invisible, so present, be so physical? But it is. Just by existing, it pushes, it pulls — it makes so much possible. It conducts the wave of the trees with the wind. It generates pressure that changes how bacteria can grow. It generates sound so that dogs can hear. Beings from plants to mammals, elephants to algae, move to the whims of the thing called air.

Someday I’d like to be like the air. Help beings called people take off into flight. Help a being called human grow into something to take pride in. Help myself make pretty sound, a positive impact in the world around me. I feel the birds know something about that. They “fffth” and “whoosh” with the air. That’s why I stare when the bird flies.