Listening Long and Late

Another Spring

7 another sPring Another spring. In a corner under the eaves of the porch, a nesting dove— the same returning dove—tosses a few dry weeds, willy-nilly, into the prevailing wind, then waits for them to fall in place. Some do. * Because I mean her no harm she allows me to draw close to her precarious balcony. I bid her good morning, she cocks her head at me and blinks— two old familiars who share a moment of dappled light falling on the peaceable kingdom of the front porch. * This morning, a light drift of feathers on the lawn and the day’s expectations sour. Each spring this dumb show of events repeats itself: a nest abandoned, another plundered by crow or jay, eggs spilled from their thatch, an inch of blue flesh, like a maimed thumb, drying in the sun. 8 * Does the dove, in its season, despite its plaintive moan, learn nothing? And I, in mine? I fetch the paper from the lawn, people drive by to another day of work. Nothing is brought to completion. Later I’ll sweep away the nest—empty, again, of everything but a blind belief in the possible. ...