Cynthia Daniello is one 84-year-0ld I don’t think I want to tangle with.

She is in the third day of her struggle to put up a blog by herself  – the blog is fittingly called the NeverEnding Story. Today she is ensnared in some frustrating technical problems, she and a friend are working on them.

She has a blog on Blogger.com, and has already written one post,  but neither she or anyone else can access it yet. She has some help from the Army Of Good.

Cynthia is eager to get it up and get to working, she has written a post already. I’ve told her this is the technical world, everything is simple until it isn’t.

But she wasn’t idle. She is tough and strong with words. She has become a leader (and honorary poet) in a struggle with the management of her Independent Living Association, where she lives.

Here independent living home is in an uproar. And she wisely is using poetry as a powerful weapon.

The managemen of the association says it is planning to eliminate the resident’s right to plan flowers in the tiny beds in front of each unit, and also to ban the resident’s bird feeders (which have been there for a decade).

The other residents have been gathering all day in her home, and Cynthia went to work and wrote a poem for them, which they love. I think she is a natural leader.

I am surprised by the cruelty and insensitivity of this decision, flowers and birds and any living thing is is profound importance to people as they get older and feel that life has sometimes left them behind.

Blockhead decisions like this don’t make their lives any easier. Ban birds and butterflies? Yuk.

Here is her poem, which she distributed to the other residents, and which she gave me permission to publish here.

“Tis Spring – each little flower bed

Lies barren, all the flowers dead.

The birds are looking for their seed.

No woman’s hand provides their need.

Humming birds will soon arrive

To find no feeders to survive.

Those who came here were deceived

Gentle folks, now aggrieved.

No blooms, no birds, no butterflies.

Jut lonely, hollow, tear-filled eyes.”

• Cynthia Daniello.

Cynthia has published some of her poems before, I think the management is in for a big s—storm. I didn’t know she was a poet, her blog promises to be even more exciting – her life, her life with animals, her poetry.

I’m sorry she is struggling to get her blog up and running, but I also know she will get there. She is determined to put her voice out into the world, and this poem is quite a wonderful start.

I would not want to try to keep Cynthia from doing something she wants to do.

The poem got my blood boiling, I can only imagine how the other residents will react. Go, girl. Get that blog up when you can.

Stay tuned, the blog will be up any day now. I’d wager the small gardens and bird feeders will be around too.

If you wish to offer Cynthia support in her worthy crusade, her e-mail address is [email protected].