“Light as a feather.”

That apparently means that if a feather floats and brushes against you, you barely feel it.

And, of course, feathers are the means of lifting a bird to be “lighter than air.”

My limited experience with feathers and birds complicates my response.

You pluck a chicken or turkey to get at the meat. Those feathers just get in the way.

I know that the spine of a feather is so strong that a quill feather is split by a knife and, dipped into ink, writes calligraphly a signature or a document like the Constitution. You can trim the nib. This is a heavy duty feather.

The feathers in a feather duster cluster their stems. Then the ends gently brush off dust without scratching or leaving a mark. I could try to make one, if I had access to feathers or raised big birds.

There’s also the feather bed and the feather pillow. They are supposed to be like sleeping on air.

But my limited experience includes the stems which poke through.

The vagaries and details of everyday life continue to bumfuzzle me.

Language does not always match experience. Words can hold secret meanings which contradict themselves.

I used to have a feather duster. I’d hold it by the handle and gently remove the dust.

I guess the use of objects is like the use of words.