“I was chaos on the first day,waiting for the Word.”

“Without you, I am an empty placewhere spiders crawl and nothing takes root.”

“ I have always known that you will visit my grave.I see myself as a small brown bird,perhaps a sparrow, watching youfrom a low branch as you prayin front of my name. I will hear yousound out my epitaph: Aqui descansauna mujer que quiso volar.You will recall telling methat you once dreamed in Spanish,and felt the wordslift you into flight. The sound of wingswill startle you when you say "volar,"and you will understand.”

“In the wind that may travelas far as you have gone, I send this message: Out here,in a place you will not forget, a simple manhas been moved to curse the rising sun and to questionGod's unfinished work.”

“Living with her taught me this:That silence is a thick and dark curtain,the kind that pulls down over a shop window;that love is the repercussion of a stonebouncing off that same window - and that painis something you can embrace, like a rag dollnobody will ask you to share.”

“The decade is over, time to begin forgivingold sins. Thirteen years since your deathon a Florida interstate - and againa dream of an old wrong.”

“The oldest woman in the village, Paciencia, predicts the weather from the flight of birds:Today it will rain toads, she says,squinting her face into a mystery of wrinklesas she reads the sky - tomorrow,it will be snakes.”