| Obsessed with the fear of losing his mind,
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| he soon couldn’t take care of himself anymore.
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| He had no friends or relatives to look after him,
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| only once a week some male nurse dropped in.
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| He was found in this bed, dehydrated…-
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| unconscious, as he was, they brought him to a different place.
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| «We have never heard of him since…»
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| He lived alone in his house for most of his life,
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| and I wouldn’t be surprised,
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| if he had died the same day they put him in a room
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| with people he’d never seen before.
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| He had a wild garden behind his house…-
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| so beautiful and dark.
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| Woodpeckers and squirrels lived there,
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| and hedgehogs, mice and martens.
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| Hazelnut-trees and wild strawberries grew,
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| and cherries, apples and pears, and currents of red and black…-
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| all hidden in this private place.
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| In the safety of the shadows the fragile fern slept,
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| along the winding paths the wild-flowers wept,
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| snowdrops nodded their little heads in spring,
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| forget-me-nots, and all kind of things,
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| of which I do not know the names…
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| And, of course, there was ivy everywhere.
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| It happened the same week they took him away
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| workers hacked down all the trees in the garden…-
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| hired by the envious people outside… who had always been terrified
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| by the beauty that enchanted this place,
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| and the darkness it was breathing.
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| Yet, none of them could keep the dead birds from singing… |