A mourning dove rests
on her soft nest
in a window box
among my pink petunias.
Her eggs fragile,
but warm as stones.
I do not coax her
with crumbs
or the memory of flight,
the quick river
hatching fish below.
She is a devoted mother--
more than feathers, wings,
a soft sack of bones.
Crouched among the blooms,
I imagine she rehearses
a silent poem;
it does not rhyme with "flowers."
Perhaps her mind is still
as Buddha's,
does not rise and fall
like mine,
hatch like the moon,
wax or wane or sigh.
~ ~ April Bulmer
Published in Open Minds Quarterly, Vol. XIII, No. III (Fall, 2011).
With permission.
