music by Jay Ansill, words by Anne Hills
© 2016 Raven Heart Music/El Chiflado Music ASCAP

From Anne’s album Fragile Gifts

How dark, it came in feathered flight alone
but left as two, her bright life quickly flown.
You turn with ragged breath, forgetting now
remembering then, for death demands we bow
to nothing that we know. We stumble down
on knees and weep, accept its timeless crown.
So cruel or kind it comes for everyone
beneath the icy moon, the searing sun.
Amid the chaos of the city street,
among the quiet forests; no retreat.
On liquid land or solid sea, this twine
unraveled now, was never yours or mine.

You, like a child, collapsing with this loss.
Distinctly yours, communal albatross.

(for Michael on the loss of his mother)
June 2004