Tag: Mourning Doves

Admission by Livia Meneghin

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Admission

The mourning doves returned this May. Despite
last summer’s shooing & ammonium poured

onto the terrace floor. Despite a ramshackle
bicycle as the only shelter to roost beneath.

They first came the year our home was vacated.
I went north. My sister went south. My mother,

away in her own way, tended to her dying
parents a ten minute drive down the Bronx River.

I admit, I was angry with my mother for leaving
our apartment. The words taste of guilt

because so had I. She chose to stay in her
childhood home instead—where her parents,

one at a time, over countless sleepless nights
& all the love a daughter could give, left her.

When my mother returned, the doves joined her,
knowing she would admit them a nest. Now,

two eggs await life in a shallow swirl of twigs
& dry leaves. We, her daughters, build lives

elsewhere, slowly learn to give her permission
to grieve how she needs, & imagine—

she does not wish to disturb the birds
on the terrace, so she looks out the window, hoping

they will come into view.

*

Livia Meneghin (she/her) is the author of Honey in My Hair and is the Sundress Reads Editor. She has won fellowships and awards from Breakwater Review, The Room Magazine, the Academy of American Poets, the Writers’ Room of Boston, and elsewhere. Since earning her MFA, she teaches college literature and writing. She is a cancer survivor.

Mourning Doves by Donna Hilbert

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Mourning Doves

Because the potted plant
on the back porch needs water,
I come nose to beak
with a brooding dove,
too late to stop the water
pouring from my pitcher.
I flood the nest.

Her mate watches from powerlines.
She moves to a nearby ledge,
leaving the egg alone in the sodden pot.

Throughout the day, I go outside
and see the doves maintaining vigil.

By nightfall, the pair is gone.
I peer into the pot.
Nothing remains of nest or feather.
Not a trace of shell.

*

Donna Hilbert’s latest book is Threnody, from Moon Tide Press. Earlier books include Gravity: New & Selected Poems, Tebot Bach, 2018. She is a monthly contributing writer to the on-line journal Verse-Virtual. Work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Braided Way, Chiron Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Rattle, Zocalo Public Square, ONE ART, and numerous anthologies. Poems have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac and on Lyric Life. She writes and leads private workshops in Southern California, where she makes her home, and during residencies at Write On Door County. Learn more at donnahilbert.com

Mourning Doves by Audrey Hackett

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Mourning Doves

Morning and evening
they coo for each other and us
from the white pine.

Their speech is kind
as a cool day
when the wind quietly touches.

The young, nearly adult, still drink
from each parent’s open throat.

Is it the milk that gives
them their mild lives and cries?

They do not fear the owl
or hawk. They do not
hear our sadness in their talk.

*

Audrey Hackett lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Winner of a 2022 Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, she holds an MFA in poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Recent poems have appeared in Twelve Mile Review, Green Ink and ONE ART.