The thrush and the giraffe

Leo Cunha Illustrations by

Graça Lima

The thrush and the

The thrush and the

Leo Cunha Illustrations by

Graça Lima

The thrush and the

Considered Highly Recommended

by FNLIJ – 1994 Jabuti Award, category illustrations – 1994

Copyright © Leo Cunha, 2012 All rights reserved to EDITORA FTD S.A. Rua Rui Barbosa, 156 – Bela Vista – São Paulo – SP CEP 01326-010 – Tel. (0-55-11) 3598-6000 Caixa Postal 65149 – CEP da Caixa Postal 01390-970 www.ftd.com.br

Contacts Director Ceciliany Alves Publisher Isabel Lopes Coelho Foreign Rights Tassia Oliveira foreignrights@ftd.com.br

Leo Cunha is a children’s books writer. He has a PhD in Arts/Film Studies and a master’s degree in Information Science. He also works as professor, translator and journalist. Cunha received the Debut Author Award from FNLIJ in 1993 and the Jabuti Award – Debut Author, in 1994.

To Vá and Caró.

To my parents.

To my literary supporters, Fanny, Sylvia, Tato and Edmir.

The thrush

The thrush trusted he’d thrust himself in the air, my Grandfather said.

The thrush trusted he sang well, said Grandpa.

And of birds he really understood.

But the thrush in my story didn’t know how to fly.

He knew how to sing. He could flap as much he wanted, but up he wouldn’t go.

Fly, fly, little thrush! The poor thing wouldn’t take off. He jumped off the branch, landed in the bowl.

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The thrush wouldn’t give up. He jumped, fell, jumped, fell, tried, fell. Thrush in the bowl. Oh, no!

Everybody laughed, but they all knew: that thrush couldn’t fly.

He lived singing his longing: to feel the air, and fill the air with his flying.

Flying over the houses, the streets, the people, the fear.

To fly as a bird, float as a thrush, no destination, no route. Easy, easy, willy-nilly. He just wanted to fly.

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Dreams he also had. Wings scraping the clouds’ linings, flights crossing the empty morning.

But among the trappings of the breeze, the thrush wouldn’t take off.

He sang, though, as out of this world. The thrush trilled as a tenor, and trilling he was a dear. Then, came the trilling of fear, the pain from the lack of height. He sang as a pang of pain hit him in the chest, the disappointed thrush.

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