Even when the wind would breathe through the hollow flutes of bamboo
rustling like cellophane or chiffon beneath the window, almost as quietly
as a held breath departing the body, almost as completely dry as gauze
(always vying against the thistle and foxtail for more light, more rain
yet never quite healthy enough to disrupt the view of the back field
or the stand of plum trees there), no one gave very much thought
to bamboo or our mother, both persisting on what they could,
neither thriving nor dying but caught somewhere in between.