Poem: June 11, 2019

Sometimes I Think About the Other Dove

Sometimes I think about the other dove,
of arks and floods and mated pairs and love.

They must have thought they'd won some lottery
as they flew into the last menagerie.

And for forty days as they took their guilty rest
with those left behind still beating in their chest,

they knew, at least, the comfort of shared grief
and could warm themselves in a promise, in the belief

that the last of doves might also be the first,
their hatchlings never knowing want or thirst.

Blessed like the camels, the kangaroos and ravens,
to be paired and safe within their floating haven

until the man took one dove in his hand
and sent it in the darkness to find land,

and so the other dove was left to wait-
the only animal without a mate.

What was it like to perch there all alone,
your only other lost to the unknown?

Did comfort cease? Did millet lose its taste?
Was their promised picture now erased?

How cruel to have to imagine pending grief
until your love should find the olive leaf!