This is the poem William Lishman shared with me, which I used parts of to compose From Canada for Trent Severn. RIP Bill. So many miss you, even the birds. <3 It was an honour to write this song with you. – Dayna
True Freedom
I am always thrilled to take to the air
to follow a whimsical line
across the face of the earth
to carve wondrous curves
that skim rolling pastures
mimicking the forces
that formed a meandering valley.
It is bird freedom ever sought
since man could first imagine.
No computer game or carnie ride
can compare to the exhilaration
of gliding across misty hollows in the early dawn
or circumnavigating a woodlot
at treetop level
This is as close to bird flight
as mankind gets.
Whether by accident or design
birds have been here waiting
long before the dawn of man,
to taunt us, to make us envious,
to cajole us into the sky
to join them in their gravity defying medium.
This is our instinct
this is the freedom
we have ever sought.
So engrained in the human psyche
that the image of humans flying
wing to wing with birds
gives pause to all but the most jaded,
The emotion is so powerful
many are brought to tears
once in that heightened state,
it is the time of epiphanies,
when cosmic truths flow
the soul is renewed.
This is our true value to mankind
those of us who fly with birds.
-Bill Lishman
