For Helen

She seemed like a chrysalis
the last time I saw her,
or maybe a nest,
with her paper skin and floating hair
and delicate, twig-like bones;
something, at any rate,
that held a lively Nature's child
in a fragile, temporary shell.
And her voice was a bird's,
which signifies flight;
so I must have known, considering these clues,
that soon she would show the world those feathered limbs
that bore her up, along with those who knew her,
through one hundred delighted years;
and that she would further rise,
with a smiling gentleness that was hers alone,
to who knows where
happy, on brilliant wings.

December 1 2011