Sometimes she's Confucian-- 

resolute in privation. . . .



Each day, more immobile, 

hip not mending, legs swollen;



still she carries her grief 

with a hard steadiness.



Twelve years uncompanioned, 

there's no point longing for



what can't return. This morning, 

she tells me, she found a robin



hunched in the damp dirt 

by the blossoming white azalea.



Still there at noon-- 

she went out in the yard



with her 4-pronged metal cane-- 

it appeared to be dying.



Tonight, when she looked again, 

the bird had disappeared and



in its place, under the bush, 

was a tiny egg-- 



"Beautiful robin's-egg blue"-- 

she carried carefully indoors.



"Are you keeping it warm?" 

I ask--what am I thinking?-- 



And she: "Gail, I don't want

a bird, I want a blue egg."