Doves --For Noreen

                                                                              4-7-13

          I can't remember if these are "morning" doves, like

"doves at dawn," or if they're "mourning" doves--doves of grief.

With no computer or reference volume, I'm as dumb as a stump.

          Whatever they're called, the doves perch delicately on 

the razor wire and chain link that surround our small yard; this

wears a depressing cold war frown. The apartments leak vodka

and black market drugs looking strangely like the prison. Perhaps

both were built by the same pre-Reagan contractor.

          The doves are probably indifferent to political

 boundaries of fences, only concerned if they were to get caught

in a trigger-happy crossfire. For now, they seem as blase as tehy

whir and coo. The smaller one--a female I guess--plops down to 

stroll flirtatiously among the dead leaves, while the male sings

to her from the sharp wire.

         Since I don't know whether these doves are
"morning" or "mourning," I get to choose my terms. I go for

the sadder homonym, especially since I don't have any ravens

around to distract me.

        I lean against a leafless tree, my back to my fellow

prisoners. I can't see the other women this way, but I 

can feel them. They want to speak with me, but they 

sense the privacy of my "mourning dove" moment, and they leave

me alone. This unspoken courtesy, part of prison etiquette,

is a "given" here. So, I take my alloted space and sigh with

the doves, a gentle whipping cadence, the falling notes as graceful as grief.

          I notices that they don't seem to be 

doing anything. They're not even looking for food; they

just stare at each other and sing. What are they waiting for?

I wonder. Then, I realize that they may not be waiting, perhaps

this suspension of action is not waiting at all; perhaps

they are simply being.

         I watch the pale light color the scene lavender.

A mother-of-pearl luminescence radiates from the sun's veil.

Under my fingertips, the quiet tree bark is only slightly rough.

The air is warm, and I smell the first bond-breaking scents

of new roots stretching their sleepy arms, easing up from

the thawing earth.

         My cheeks are wet--not from shame or sadness--

but from a liquid union with this exquisite delicacy,

a suspiration filled with ineffable contradictions--the

the fragility of the doves stitched by the danger of the razor wire.

         I have no questions; I merely wait self-consciously.

Then I consider that, perhaps, like the doves, I am not waiting 

at all.

         From behind me, I hear the light step of a woman

approaching. My prescribed moment for reflection is over.

          I smell rain.