Given That Pelicans Have Flown in Perfect Formation
For the Last Thirty Million Years, I have Concluded,
That the Almighty Was Way Ahead of His Time
In Terms of Aeronautical Aesthetics, Etc.
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Creation of a learner-God
That in a line will fly
So nearly on
The ocean’s edge
Beneath the edgeless sky
You are a relic in the mist
That shrouds all giant wings,
A study in the awkward form
Exaggeration brings
Unto first efforts,
Done in love,
Before they are revised
And tempered in
The just repeal
That second thoughts devise
Your face is dull to look upon,
Your feathers, brown and coarse
You are the standard of a dream
That marries hawk and horse
But though you are
A learner’s work,
The learner was
A god,
And when you glide
Above the main,
I hear my heart applaud
What thing on Earth
Surpasses you
In purpose
Or design,
When you are
Gracing life itself,
Just flying in a line?[1]
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Then God Said, “let the Waters Abound
With an Abundance of Living Creatures,
And Let the Birds Fly Above the Earth
Across the Face of the Heavens
Genesis 1:20
[1] According to Wikipedia, the oldest known pelican fossil was found in Early Oligocene deposits at the Luberon in southeastern France and is remarkably similar to modern forms. Its beak is almost complete and morphologically identical to its modern-day descendants.
Pelicans fly in a line because during flight, an updraft is created by the “upstroke of one bird\'s wing,” and the following bird can “take advantage of this wingtip vortex” to save a significant amount of energy.