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The Sacred Sound of the Dove I have come back from the far field with my bloody sack full of flutterless birds knocked from the sky and riddled with pellets, the last flash of sunset in their underfeathers, and I have spent hours plucking and gutting for the taste of a meager but wilder meat and known the flavor of brass across the cracked tooth, and I will not say I failed to understand that the dove is chosen, that he was Noah’s blessed messenger and God’s envoy of annunciation, for his reticent humble cooing is the sound of grace amazing, which did not save me— striding beyond the peach orchard and the empty gestures of our single pecan tree— from the heart’s high singing at the thought of blood, even as a southerly covey passing over veered low and slowed to study me. I could see their wings glittering, and sometimes I still feel the twin triggers of the Browning tickling my finger and believe the blued barrels could blast 99 1SMITH_pages.qxd 8/13/07 10:44 AM Page 99 across the sky a song of my power and pleasure, which is why I can still shiver when a country preacher, inviting the choir to stir us all from lust and lethargy, turns his blazing face to heaven to say, “Not even the mockingbird on his black limb can mimic the lament of the blessed dove.” 100 1SMITH_pages.qxd 8/13/07 10:44 AM Page 100 ...

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