mourning doves

Monday January 14, 2019

Dave Bonta January 14, 2019

Low sun on snow—even the shadows glitter. I’m feeling creaky, like the labored wingbeats of a dove starting up from the water.

Dave Bonta March 13, 2018

Had I not risen early I would’ve missed the sun, the rooster, two doves’ calls blending into something like the distant locomotive’s chord.

Dave Bonta March 13, 2017

The drone of a single-prop plane, hidden like the horizon by trees. A mourning dove calls. The sun slowly submerges in a mud bath of clouds.

Dave Bonta January 9, 2017

White sky. The sun is a bright spot like the eye of a blind cave salamander. Doves flutter up from the cattails on piccolo wings.

Dave Bonta July 11, 2016 1

Strong sun, deep shadow. Off in the woods, two deer-shaped silhouettes glide through a sunlit glade. A mourning dove coos a single note.

Dave Bonta April 13, 2016 1

Deep blue, cloudless sky. A mourning dove tries a variation on its usual dirge, the third and fourth notes higher, less hopeless-sounding.

Dave Bonta March 17, 2016 1

Trees rock and sway in the wind—still the quiet wind of winter, hissing only in the pines. The startled flute of a mourning dove’s wings.

Dave Bonta November 18, 2015

Cold and gray. Two doves sit motionless in a tall locust. A pileated woodpecker skulks through the woods, silent save for its wingbeats.

Dave Bonta March 31, 2015

Two A-10 aircraft roar over; I get a glimpse of the nearer one through the trees. A dove flees on whistling wings. A vulture keeps circling.

Dave Bonta February 18, 2015

Behind the sky’s thin skin, the sun is lurid as a bruise. More snow on the way. Six doves take off at once—the piccolo noise of their wings.