Poppy Cat slipped out of my pencil many year ago, inspired by the shower of poppy seeds from the dried seed heads in the garden - a scattering of pepper in the air, like something from A Midsummer Nights Dream.
Do fairies and flying creatures capture the imagination because of a common wish that we could also take wing? To my four-year old mind it had made sense. I reasoned that I could fly: lift one leg off the ground, then the other, then hover. What was not to work? I tried it and the floor came up to meet me. Gravity. I still remember the pattern of the linoleum on my knees. But in dreams I still fly.
High Flight
"Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,
– and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless falls of air...
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor eer eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God."
John Gillespie MaGee
John Gillespie MaGee
Best wishes, dreamers and fairy followers all.
3 Comments on High Flight and Poppy Cat, last added: 9/2/2009
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Yes, that darned gravity thing keeps getting in the way.
And overcoming it with huge jet engines and tiny windows to look out of, takes away all the fun.
Cats can almost fly it seems, or as they said in Toy Story, "fall with style"! Your lovely,delicate drawing looks believable, especially on Midsummer Night.
Love those clouds, and your beautiful winged kitty. Does Tiger Tim feature at all as a model?
Don't we all want to fly? Isn't that what gave the Wright Brothers inspiration for their early flying machines?
It's lovely to be able to take to the air in our imagination, aided by beautiful imagery like that which you create.
xo