Elegy (without number)

She circled round, back and forth,
a virtuoso of hope, caged by memory,
rearranging her ancient rocks
in simple patterns on an endless path.

She hummed at songs of birth,
rainbows hugged into an apron
of an always busy, swaying lap:
distaccare tempo announcing death.

Her perfect celestial math
curved her summons of love
to the unequal cruelty of the pretty April
flowers planted around her porch.

She might have seen her worth
someday beyond the woven bars
of her personal garden, a shrinking jail;
but she never looked nor altered course.