Of birds and men

SINCE HUMANS have existed, they have envied birds. They long to fly like them; to see as they do, sharply with a hawk’s eye; and to sing like them, through instruments or with their own duller, heavier bodies. For some, it is not just a matter of strapping on feather wings, caulked with tar or wax, and jumping off a church tower; or of putting on a feather-suit, like Papageno in “The Magic Flute”, and trilling on a pipe. For a handful of men (it seems always to be men), the aim is to become birds, as far as they can.