(for Terri Wolf in Port Ludlow, Washington)

In the midst of our online chat,
Terri abruptly said, “A bird just
slammed into the glass”—the large
picture window over her desk
out of which she beholds stately
pines marching downhill to
the deep blue of the Hood Canal.

We sat at our respective machines
almost 800 miles apart editing
together a piece of her memoir
about working in the chemo suite
early in her nursing career, both
of us left a bit teary by stories
of patients out of options,
near death, when… bam!

Had a life ended in that moment,
literally before her eyes? Terri
got up to look. “It’s lying there,
face up,” she said, both of us
thinking, oh, dear. “Maybe I
should go turn it over.”

And, grabbing a tissue, the nurse
opened the sliding glass door
door to see what she might do
for a small brown patient. “A finch?”
I guessed, having sat on that deck
in the hot tub watching a small
flotilla flock to the feeders.

Terri gently flipped the finch and
returned, both of us turning back
to the task at hand, pausing a couple
more times as she checked on the birdie.
After several minutes she reported,
“It’s sitting up!” and I cheered.

Hours later, when she texted,
“No bird on the deck this evening.
Hopefully, it flew away… ,” I thought,
not for the first time, that hope,
that thing with feathers, was what
she tried to bring to every patient,
scared and sick in her care, even on
her busiest days.

So often all we can do is offer
a gentle hand to those knocked down
by what they couldn’t see coming,
perhaps help them turn over,
then be delighted when they sit up
on their own, stunned, but still
somehow amazingly, blessedly
alive.