Pretty much the day I stopped being laureate, the poems that had been few and far between came back to me, like birds in the evening nesting in a tree.
Katana is a trained, disciplined martial artist. She removes herself from Birds of Prey to go on a personal journey in Japantown, San Francisco, and pursue a quest for vengeance against the Sword Clan, the men that killed her husband.
When I read Katana's run in 'Birds of Prey,' I was curious about her restraint. She didn't laugh, didn't loosen up, didn't seem to have a light side. I thought, well, that demure nature is what we believe of women of Old Japan, so she seemed not like a modern Japanese but from an earlier time.
In 1999 my father died and my mother was coming to live with me. So I left my Kennington flat and bought a house with a garden because my mother loved watching the birds.
If I were queen for a day, every city would have to spend one hour in utter silence: no music in shops and restaurants, no honking of horns, no conversations on mobile phones. Only birds would be allowed to sing.
I grew up in central Florida in the nineteen-sixties, barefoot half the time and running around the orange groves where my father worked. I remember flocks of white birds that would lift from the backs of cattle, disturbed by the jackhammers and bulldozers clearing land for Walt Disney World.
I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.
The construction of an airplane is simple compared with the evolutionary achievement of a bird. If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.
The Bible tells us that God will meet all our needs. He feeds the birds of the air and clothes the grass with the splendor of lilies. How much more, then, will He care for us, who are made in His image? Our only concern is to obey the heavenly Father and leave the consequences to Him.
I haven't changed. My family and I live as we did in South Spain. I've had loud music, chickens, birds, and a bull in my backyard.
