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)