Birds that Migrate

by Alonna Freerksen

People love metaphors involving birds.

Mary Angelou wrote about birds that sing in cages.

Harper Lee wrote about the innocence of birds.

Yet even so, I don’t think many metaphors exist for migrating birds.

Which is odd because many things can be said for birds that migrate.

Birds that migrate dance in the wind, they somehow always know where to go.

Young children watch them with a sense of awe no matter if the birds are geese, seagulls, bluejays, or maybe even small humming birds.

Birds that migrate explore the world, they fight and survive just to come home again.

No one ever talks about the battles that no one likes to see. Maybe that’s why people talk about butterflies more, they fight pretty unlike my bird friends. Birds have to fight to survive a long journey with some secret map in their head that tells them where to go. They always find home in the end.

Birds that migrate never let fear overrule them.

I’ve always wondered if they fear what the future will hold? Do they worry if the place they are going is right? Do they make friends on the other side? I like to imagine that the birds meet those geese, seagulls, bluejays, and the occasional humming bird.

All of the birds that migrate are united in this new and scary place.

And finally the last thing that can be said for birds that migrate is that above all.

Birds that migrate might be the strongest birds of us all.