A Linnet

        It crossed the road so as to avoid having to greet me.  “Poor thing but mine own,” I said,
	“without a song the day would never end.”  Warily the thing approached.  I pitied its stupidity so
	much that huge tears began to well up in my eyes, falling to the hard ground with a plop.  “I
	don’t need a welcome like that,” it said.  “I was ready for you.  All the ladybgs and the buzzing
	flies and the alligators know about you and your tricks.  Poor, cheap thing.  Go away, and take
	your song with you.”
	        Night had fallen without my realizing it.  Several hours must have passed while I stood
	there, mulling the grass and possible replies to the hapless creature.  A mason still stood at the
	top of a ladder repairing the tiles in a roof, by the light of the moon.  But there was no moon. 
	Yet I could see his armpits, hair gushing from them, and the tricks of the trade with which he
	was so bent on fixing that wall.