Venerdì, 12 Marzo, 2004 | Posted by Lionel Gerkin at 19:25

I find it very hard to complete this entry. I have just returned from a funeral. It was a beautiful, sunny day as is always the case in RhumbaLand. But it was different.

The normally, whispering wind excused itself and lay silent. Car horns that were pressed in anger refused to honk out of respect. Blades of grass bowed their silky heads.

Even the sun found a large tree to hide behind so that a kind, cooling shadow would fall over the funeral party.

Once the coffin had been lowered, and the first grains of dirt started to cover the memories, a bird in the nearby tree started singing. It was a Hummingbird. A Rufous hummingbird. It puffed out its silken, golden chest and you could see its pointy beak start to warble.

The Rufous hummingbird's natural habitat is the northwest coast of the USA, all the way up to Alaska. How it made its way here I will never know.

The hummingbird cleared its throat and sang an old Cole Porter classic:

Everytime we say goodbye I die a little
Everytime we say goodbye I wonder why a little
Why the gods above me who must be in the know
Think so little of me, they allow you to go

And when you're near there's such an air of Spring about it
I can hear a lark somewhere begin to sing about it
There's no love song finer but how strange the change from major to minor
Everytime we say goodbye

Why the gods above me who must be in the know
Think so little of me, they allow you to go
And when you're near there's such an air of Spring about it
I can hear a lark somewhere begin to sing about it

There's no love song finer but how strange the change from major to minor
Everytime we say goodbye, everytime we say goodbye
Everytime we say goodbye, everytime we say goodbye.....