Mourning/Morning Dove...03.03.2013..Barbara H...

every morning is different

each one

just a bit lighter

daylight savings time

in a few short weeks

bitterly cold this morning

and excessively dark

and from the right of me

as I take the porch steps,

the call of a DOVE,

"Wow! what a surprise!

Doves represent comfort

to me..

first memory:

my husband and I

out in the yard

of our first rental house,

girls on tricycles,

me, with the camera,

trying for the perfect shot,

when, rustling above us

with their soft interruption,

came the cooing of two doves.

Looking up and seeing them

looking down, husband, in almost

inaudible murmur, matching their

soft fluster, said, "You know, with

doves there is love!"

That statement held me through

the next twenty years, another

daughter, and then seven years

aftter that, a son. He is the one,

who upon running from the school

bus, stopped to mimic our second

house congregation of doves. They

aligned themselves on the electric

wire and provided a soft cacophony

of daily sound.

He was about eight, I'd say,

when he learned,

that, if when standing beneath

the dove-lined wire, cupped his

hands around his mouth and

tried imitation of their sound,

they would, indeed answer,

and so, that is what he did every day

after school, the scene I loved.

School books scattered on the ground,

Kevin, standing with his back to the house,

hands up to his face, hoo-hooing

with perfection,

and being answered.

Doves seemed to have filled those years,

and now in the pitch black,

as I head off in my pickup

to get two granddaughters off

to their school buses,

I am alone, but not alone, for a dove

has come to serenade.

03.03.2013

Barbara H.