the days, she counts
backwards, and recalls what she was doing
5000 sunsets ago
and she does know
5000 from now, she'll be gone, if number
wizards are right
on this winter night,
she thumbs through old photos
of loved ones now far away
she finds one of a sunny day
five decades past--she and her man long departed
sitting under a tree
there she can plainly see
the pines and the bed of needles
on which they made love
and directly above,
she squints to discover, a bird
caught in flight
she returns to this night,
places the photo in the box where
it has rested all these years
somehow, the image allays her fears:
the father of her children, smiling, holding her hand;
the bird she finally saw, wings spread forever