i still surprise them
even after nearly six years of quiet-yet-unstealthy,
devotion to them

they’ve never once held their roost or kept their forage
upon my careful intrusion, my neutral presence
to maybe know of me
to maybe trust of me

their survival instinct is so strong
but i still take umbrage,
playful, but umbrage, nonetheless

then i remember Nemerov’s words about their feathers
in our caps, our pillows, our coats
“The Distances They Keep,”
then i remember Kimmerer’s words about
the aweing ubiquity and incredible extinction of the Omimi,
Martha the Last, died 109 years ago come September,
then i read how happy fields of sunflowers are cultivated to serve as bait traps for dove hunters at my beloved Starved Rock – after all the lovely fall engagement and high school photo shoots wind down,
and of those who cruelly suggest their flesh is quite delicious

there is no honorable harvest among the descendants of thieves, of colonizers, of settlers, of “homesteaders” — i know this.

so, my god, yes,

stay shy, stay distant, dear doves,

there are many reasons, that i stay shy, stay distant, and in mourning too, but none as good as theirs

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addendum poem:

“dove,”
what a lovely name for a gentle bird
what a lovely name for a newly-born girl
what a terrible name for a woman in this world

Continue reading “the mourning doves” →