“The leaves were still on the trees, but were becoming dry, perched like birds ready to fly off.”

“A tired flying bird
Has to perch somewhere to rest.
So should my old knees.”

“If you become a bird and fly away from me, I will be a tree that you come home to.”

“Spring: trees flying up to their birds”

“and the sad notes floated out to the
patio and hung in the trees like birds too tired to fly”

“Calico Pie,
The little Birds fly
Down to the calico tree,
Their wings were blue,
And they sang "Tilly-loo!"
Till away they flew,—
And they never came back to me!”

“For all species, including our own, the true figure of life is a perching bird, a passerine, alert and nervous in every part, ready to dart off in an instant. Life is always poised for flight. From a distance it looks still, silhouetted against the bright sky or the dark ground; but up close it is flitting this way and that, as if displaying to the world at every moment its perpetual readiness to take off in any of a thousand directions.”

“I realized I was fulfilling mankind’s greatest dream—to fly like a bird, as naturally and as joyously as if the air were our familiar habitat.”

“Listen.
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp'd, break from the trees
And fall.”

“Leaves become most beautiful when they're about to die
When they're about to fall from trees
When they're about to dry”