Disney draws the Legend of the Thou-
sand Birds. Each songbird pulls a thread,
unravels a woven... sleigh? But who
knits a sled?
Every thread starts to shine; frizz, spread
great billowing nets atrail the flock, a glow-
ing wireframe spectre: monstrous echo
of mortal sled-source. Awe
and dread.
The birds swoop, wheel around the lone
dark prong above the stark bed of snow:
owner of that raveled sleigh. They tow
the unridable apparition at him like
a trucktire of light onto exit-spike. No
ectoplasmic burst. The vast ghost flows
right through the man, up frozen
slope to fuse with flurried sky.
And fled.
Bundled black against the snow,
muscled body, bearded head:
Santa Claus's Jungian shadow!
And that's the movie's point, I know:
though (and admirably unlike
Walt's old preach) these cels just show
the Incorporeal slip through Flesh--
juncture sans puncture. Oh, find
your own moral, but here's foolish mine:
Thousand Birdpower beats a mere
engine of eight unreliable deer.
