Nila Wallin Barratt

My dear friend Nila passed away in her sleep. Most every Saturday for years the two of us went to lunch and a movie. She was one-of-a-kind, and I loved her. Now Henry the Hawk, in the form of an angel, has finally taken her flying away with him. But I shall surely miss her! She was a young 83.

She was, as her obituary said, "a salty old gal" who loved life and did everything she wanted to do, and more. One of those things was to write a novel called The Hawk and the Heart, a semi-autobiographical story of a woman's grief at the sudden death of her husband (personified by a hawk, who appears one day at her window to watch over her until she recovers). At one point, in a dream, he takes her on a night flight over the countryside, over the rooftops of her neighbor's farmhouses, off toward the moon and stars.

Sweet dreams, m'dear. Enjoy the journey.

...

i thank You God for most this morning
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

now the ears of my ears awake and
the eyes of my eyes are opened)


e.e. cummings

photo by tinyfishy
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