New Year’s gift of orphans: 2

Death has scattered mourning clothes on the attic floor. The orphans shiver under a quilt that smells like their mother who didn’t dream of this cold night, with no match to light a lamp, no coal to glow brightly on the grate, no warmth from the sun. Her sorrow in dying is no comfort to her little ones. When church bells ring the early hour, birds on the roof tiles scatter.