I heard her fly with heavy wings
Up to her post on the power pole
As I sat in my spring-cleaned backyard.
My widowed Mourning Dove
Of several years back.

‘Coo, COO, cooo…
COo, Cooo, coo…’

She cried, once again,
Still looking for her cat-killed mate.
I wondered if he saw her, here on earth,
From Heaven’s Gate, or the Invisible Perch,
Or the Great Beyond. I looked up,
Then around the yard, cats are still here,
But, I didn’t ‘see’ him. However, I’m not a bird.

My mom died a month ago, suffering no more,
Yet, gone, you know? I’ve been thinking
About spirits. I remember, when I was a child,
I was told ‘so-and-so is watching you’,
Whether I knew them or not. I didn’t really
Like the thought, worried about it quite a lot,
It felt oogey, to my child-mind, scary, and downright
Intolerable with its impunitic inaccessibility.
I guess I made up my mind, back then, to protect
Myself from being spirit-viewed, and went about
My business of living what life was bringing
While I was young, and learning.

‘COO, coo, cooo…’

She sings her lament, still guarding the backyard
From any other doves, still grieving, feeling
The length of his passing, and, perhaps, the width
Of future days to come, alone, and lonely.

I wondered if she knew a new pair of doves
Had built a nest in the palm tree in the front yard.
A jumble of twigs precariously perched on the top
Of one of the lower fronds. There was much
Coo-cooing and flapping of wings in its making.
Now, the mother-to-be sits complacently
Upon her and her mate’s eggs, tail jutting
From one side, bright-eyed head from the other.

I’ve been thinking of spirit lives. Just an aspect
Or two. My mom related to me, how, when my
Grandmother died, after her same long illness,
Grandma, who was mostly comatose towards the end,
Suddenly sat up while reaching out her arms, with a look
Of activated joy upon her face, then she died. My mother
Died alone, in a hospital bed, late at night. I’ll never
Know is she saw something beyond death, if
She died … happy.

I got to thinking how people say we see our lost loved ones
After we die. And, I wonder, which loved ones?
The ones from this time, last time, a future time? Maybe
Our subconscious’s have ‘others’ they love, have
Families we don’t remember, because we don’t
Know how to find them when we’re bio-fleshed.
Or, maybe we see Home, the Old Home, where
We started, where our essences were ‘birthed’.

‘Coo, coo, Cooo…’

Cries the Mourning Dove, without any answers.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 3/16/07