Winter came suddenly this year.

A blinding landscape of deep, soft snow. The air and ground became negative numbers.

Once the snow stopped falling it was windless and silent.
Frost, fog, and ice.

The sun crept out to bring back patches of grass and wet pavement.

In the lawn, a robin. Lifeless under a tree.

Under another tree, another dead robin.

Maybe they froze where they sat and fell when the ice melted.
I don’t know.

I hope it wasn’t a terrible end for each one. I don’t know.

What I do know is that each one started as a pale blue egg no bigger than your knuckle.

Each one found its way out of the egg.

An awkward, helpless fledgling inside a bundle of twigs and grass.

I know that each one survived, learned to find fruit and worms, drank out of puddles lifting its beak to feel water slide down its throat.

I know that each one learned to fly.

Surely each one sang.

I wonder if I ever heard either one sing, or saw it patter across the lawn listening for worms.

Each one is in the ground now, for the worms to find.

She buried both of them and is sad for them,
which is one reason I love her.