Dove

Talking to the Dove

When I was five years old, I could talk to birds—

me sitting in Aunt Mildred’s big-bosomed

lap on the porch swing

                        after dinner, her

smelling sweet like some fried food

or Avon perfume.  In our summer ritual,

she swung me to sleep through slackening heat

above azaleas and daylilies grown dark in the yard.

Across the silent road, a solitary mourning dove

called from permanent, native green,

slash and longleaf pine.

                        (I have since seen

the bird's meek form in nature guides:

dreamless thing perched on a limb, feet slim

as nails driven into wood, black eyes, unblinking,

haloed in heavenly blue, his perfect breast a complexion

of feathers, gray and rouge.)  Mostly, I remember

his call—a low, mournful coo-ah followed

by three long coos—

                        which came as

the word who to me and Aunt Mildred

in the swing.   A pure, sinless sound like bone

breaking, dropped china, hail and rain on tin, fine

sand blown through screen, the last clear vowel heard

before waking or sleep.  When the bird’s call met

us in some contingency of air, my aunt said,

“Talk to the dove—

                        talk to the dove.”

And I answered across the wide field

of night, “Who, Who, Who.”  Not a question

or repetition of doubt, but a greeting called over paved

road, the first words of a language I had just begun to learn.