Mourning Dove - John Muro

During these midday hours, 

after weather has softened 

and all sound and motion 

seem to have abandoned 

earth, the slender bird offers 

up a wistful murmuring 

from atop a split-rail fence, 

as if its plaintive voice is 

best suited to this time of day 

when the very air is awash 

in weariness, and the common-

place is slowly transformed 

into a comely splendor of 

stippled light, and all stands 

exposed to those of us who 

often find ourselves set apart 

from – and unable to weather – 

this broken world. Each phrase, 

though, is like a wistful psalm 

that deftly subtracts our pain 

as it brushes past and seems 

to slow time, giving way to 

a sacred stillness where breath 

holds as the bird flashes and

preens its shock of iridescence, 

and then shudders off towards 

some distant field in its soft 

sail and whistling flight. 

Bio: A resident of Connecticut, John Muro has authored two volumes of poems – In the Lilac Hour and Pastoral Suite – in 2020 and 2022, respectively. Both volumes were published by Antrim House, and both are available on Amazon and elsewhere. He is a three-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, a nominee for the Best of the Net and, more recently, a 2023 Grantchester Award recipient. John’s poems have appeared in numerous literary journals, including Acumen, Barnstorm, Delmarva, Grey Sparrow, New Square, Sky Island and the Valparaiso Review.

Commentary: A great gift for those who've actually experienced the songs of this bird. The marriage between vivid word painting and describing what those melancholic tunes do to humans is subtle yet long-lasting in effect.