Humming a fragment of a song even more ancient than she is, she straightens her back, tilts her head a little as though listening, lifts her chin, and strides across the dirt, leaving the prints of her small feet in her wake.
To the northwest corner of what had been her yard she strides.
Once there, still humming, she kneels and pokes a slender forefinger into the dirt.
Smiling at the little hole it makes, the naked little old lady pokes another hole in the dirt, and then another and another.
A pattern emerges and she steps back to gaze on it for a moment before continuing with her solitary task.
Along the property line she makes her way, creating her pattern as she goes.
After several passes she stops again and stands gazing at what she has wrought.
Standing as still as still can be she looks and looks at the design she has made in the smooth bare dirt of what was her yard.
The humming becomes louder as tears fill her eyes, course her face, and drop to the smooth bare dirt at her feet.
As she stands weeping, her right hand moves to rest over her heart and she feels the pulsing there beneath her slim fingers.
Alone and still motionless she begins to Sing.
As the Song progresses her Voice becomes stronger, louder, until her very heart is racing beneath her fingers.
'Oh say can you see by the dawn's early light what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming?'
As she sinks to the earth with the last notes of the Song on her lips, she murmurs, 'You forgot something.'
And the Stars and Stripes that she has created in the bare dirt of what had been her home waver a little, as though touched by a breeze, through her tears.
'You forgot to take my Voice, and my Spirit.'
And the little old lady, naked, kneels where she is and prays.
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