Mourning # 24

Mourning # 24

 

That magpie has a bit of string in its beak

guess they’re building a new house, here comes

the missus they’re so elegant in white shirts

and black suits but they sure squawk a lot

couples create their own dynamics

the magpies mate for life you know, my cat

is afraid of them but they mean no harm

magpies like two planes coming into SFO

here comes one, here comes the other right

behind, if you ever went out to Coyote Point to see

them you know, maybe that bit of string

I saw was actually a worm – dinner for two

with a coupon, magpies are tightwads.

 

---- Gerda Garbatzky escaped from Nazi-occupied

Austria at the start of WWII. The home she fled to in

Birmingham was bombed. Her father, grandmother and

other relatives were killed by the Nazis. She settled in

New York. Then she got breast cancer. She survived.

 

Her grandson, Geoffrey Sorenson, wanted to grieve 

with his family for Grandma Gerda but he could not

because he had COVID too. When he posted an obituary

online he got thousands of responses. His grandmother, 

he said, would have been honored.

 

Gerda Garbatzky, a retired bookkeeper, was 90 years old.