A man found an eagle’s egg and placed it under a brooding hen. The eaglet hatched with the chickens and grew to be like them.

He clucked and cackled. Scratched the earth for warms. Flapped his wings and managed to fly a few feet in the air.

Y e a r s p a sse d . O n e d a y , t h e e a g l e , n o w g r o w n o l d , sa w

a m a g n i f i ce n t b i r d a b o v e h i m i n t h e sk y . I t g l i d e d i n g r a c e f u l m a j e st y a g a i n st

t h e p o w e r f u l w i n d , w i t h sc a r c e l y a m o v e m e n t o f i t s

g o l d e n w i n g s.

Spellbound, the eagle asked, “who’s that?”

“that’s the king of the birds, the

eagle,” said his neighbour. “He belongs to the

sky. We belongs to earth, we’re

chickens”.

From Tony de Mello’s

‘The Song of the Bird’

S o the eagle lived and died a S o the eagle lived and died a

chicken, chicken,

for that’s what he thought he for that’s what he thought he

was.was.