As Mourning Doves Persist

I write of the mourning bird's persistence. Only I know precisely what this evokes. The sadness of certain sounds brought home. Sun as nest for childhood symphony. Perimeter roads charted solo or with siblings. We have grown but still there is an edge. Where frolic is sparked by song. With recipes. In the croon of the crow or a room of forgotten friends turning to smile on your approach. Gray doves lift and sail. I am brought present while swaddled in the pleasure of past napping. Holding still long enough to know the moaning, nostalgia of never forgetting. W alking a rutted road with shiny pebbles and pick up sticks fallen from trees.  Girl at home at a window with downpour on the other side of glass.  Forgiving what is absent, in age we register connections, yet we run our hands over inherited chenille and seek. Mournful bird song. Grandmother who always fed us. Letters from invisible fathers. The tangle of hedge and holly with thorns.  Shadow dog at the foot of the bed, res

1. I look in the mirror and it’s you, my mother,             staring back at me. The same way we hold our mouths, maybe,                         or the way my hair frames. A pressing, willingness (though tired). Tiny joys hypnotized, patiently waiting             I see it when I’m not looking straight on but in a quick glance                         as I wash my hands of night's  duller              dreams. These identical eyes like a collection of tiny spoons             from different states – Texas, Oklahoma, Illinois.                         Ageless pewter. 2. It’s Kentucky Derby weekend and my husband says I’m the only person              he’s ever known that followed the jockeyed ponies. I think                          immediately of my mother, of the birth of her son,  my brother, and that my father was away at that muddy,              early May race, not at the hospital walking in the arrival                   

In the night's drive there are tunnels that one can only travel alone. Honest, directional ingenuity. You call in your solid independence and recall the  previous  hours (years) when you were similarly freed of those who otherwise stunted your enthusiasm. Honor spotted like an old hat (found new) at the side of the road. You perk up passing by the familiar.  You are singing and the radio isn't even on. Yet you recall every single, soft lyric. Every drum solo. Hands thrumming. Newly you, graduated from one tier of slightly numb and overdriven to no distinguishable deadlines tail-gaiting you now in the night between dry martini stirred with Spanish tapas and a room full of genuinely enraptured, listening. Poetry and snowy photographs; and children  who invite you to their lilac bordered secret sunset place on the roof where the tar paper is peeling back. Offering you silver foil cupcake liners cradling chocolates and pretzels, and there's a royal lawn chair straddling t