thanks to tom, who found the poem for me
June 19, 2003, 1:18 am

Last year, I wrote an entry about my little cousin, Sydney.

She passed away last night after a year of treatments that were working, then weren't, then were, then stopped when she suffered a stroke.

She made it to her third birthday, and I think that's all she wanted to do.

I'm never quite sure what to say in these situations, especially this one, so I take comfort in someone else's words:

"Of the genesis of birds we know nothing,

save the legend they are descended from reptiles: flying, snap-jawed lizards that have somehow taken to air.

...But what does it matter anyway how they got up high...?

...We are often far from home in a dark town, and our griefs are difficult to translate into a language understood by others.

...But still, it is morning again, this day.

In the flowering trees the birds take up their indifferent, elegant cries.

Look around. Perhaps it isn’t too late to make a fool of yourself again.

Perhaps it isn’t too late to flap your arms and cry out, to give one more cracked rendition of your singular, aspirant song."

--Charlie Smith, "The Meaning of Birds" (also my all-time favorite poem)