Published this month in Entropy‘s “The Birds” series
ODE TO A ROCK DOVE
—For JPD
You’re right.
A blackbird taken apart
by a raptor is not the same
as the nestling pigeon,
wet from rain,
run into the
clogged freeway
by slavish,
hulking cars.
And of course it was a pigeon—
rat-of-the-sky,
pest,
dirty dirty bird—
call it
what they will,
you wish the authorities
would restore its name to dove,
dove, with all the potential
of cliches.
For isn’t that part of it?
We are a nation
in love with the idea
of pulling oneself up
by the bootstraps,
even as we call them pigeons,
even as we crush their bodies
as we inch forward dumbly
in our commute of tedium.
This ode is to the bird
that hadn’t yet grown feathers
with which to rescue itself
(and was given
no second chances)
so join me, reader,
with the same empathy
extended to the underdog,
and imagine its life if lived:
Imagine the search
for cold fries under a table
in pursuit of sustenance and survival
Imagine the spin and flash
of emerald and royal purple
in the drive to mate and remake
Imagine the power
of full-fledged wings
in the rush of rising up
up above traffic
up above streets
up above city
to look down on all of us.
Nell Smith 