Les Murray

To Fly in Just Your Suit

To Fly in Just Your Suit - meaning Summary

Humans Grounded, Animals Airborne

The poem contrasts humans, who are either transported or fall and cannot truly fly, with the natural, effortless flight of many animals. Murray notes animals discard the ground with apt bodies—"wire feet" and swooping motion—while magpies, poised on lawns, almost hang between earth and air. The closing image suggests how readily animals transform their forms for flight, highlighting a difference between human limitation and animal ease.

Read Complete Analyses

Humans are flown, or fall; humans can't fly. We're down with the gravity-stemmers, rare, thick-boned, often basso. Most animals above the tides are airborne. Typically tuned keen, they throw the ground away with wire feet and swoop rings round it. Magpies, listening askance for their food in and under lawn, strut so hair-trigger they almost dangle on earth, out of the air. Nearly anything can make their tailcoats break into wings.

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