Having arrived early, I parked, watched and waited
in a working class neighborhood, mid-week at the end of the day.
Across the street, bricklayers having finished the day and half a long wall
clean up against an approaching night. They walk the side lawn and gather tools.
As a robin, falls like a stone in silence, dead, among them, with-out an ounce of self-pity.
After a pause and in stride, the youngest bricklayer with gloved hands picks up and
spreads her gently on a prominent herring bone turret and proceeds with the clean-up.
Once the truck and trailer are neatly nearly packed, with only a rubbish bin left to store
the gloved bricklayer returns with a spade, and with a bowed head, he stops and sighs.
At the centre-base of the wall, where it turns quarter-circle to drive, he pierces the turf
scoops out a bit of dirt, folds the still soft robin into the ground, under a blanket of grass.
With a few words in a foreign tongue, possibly a prayer, he turns, disappears into the truck
embarrassed by his own kindness.
