Evergreen        This evening I saw Mrs. Louis, whose husband died just a week ago, walk out across her back lawn to the blue spruce — her "feeder-tree" she calls it — under which she's always scattered birdseed and into which she's always tied cubes of suet for nuthatches and chickadees. She walked slowly around the tree once, twice, then began tying something into it.        I walked halfway across my back lawn to where I could stand hidden behind lilacs. What she'd tied to the spruce branch gleamed. It seemed to be a silver or gold bracelet.        Mrs. Louis kept doing whatever it was she was doing. Objects glittered in the branches. It took me a while to realize she was tying her jewelry to the tree, piece after piece, diamond rings and pearl necklaces, earrings, wristwatches.        Later, after she'd gone inside and had shut off her lights, I visited the tree, walked around it in starshine and moonlight. I didn't count, but there must have been fifty pieces of jewelry in the tree...        In the morning, I'll have to read this situation more clearly, will have to do something, but what? For now, that evergreen, her poem, is all that Mrs. Louis can do to celebrate her grief. William Heyen Pig Notes & Dumb Music: Prose on Poetry BOA Editions, Ltd. Copyright © 1998 by William Heyen. All rights reserved. Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.