> Hello Gary,
I really enjoyed this piece greatly, it has a marvellous tone and atmosphere. There are just two small things that I might query. In line 6 I was slightly conscious of the syntax being forced by the absence of `any´, though this may well be another case of differences in how far to pare back language in poetry. The second point is in the final stanza where the phrase `such doves as there are´ reads a bit lumpy to my ear, and the sense seems awkward since the poem repeats that ´there are no doves´.
I hpoe this is useful.
Best wishes, Mike
> Lähettäjä: Gary Blankenship <[log in to unmask]>
> Päiväys: 2004/03/13 la AM 04:08:27 GMT+02:00
> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> Aihe: White Doves in Mourning
>
> White Doves in Mourning
>
> I longer hear the doves,
> their soft mournful call
> no longer echoes from
> the second growth
> that leads towards the Sound.
>
> There were never doves.
>
> The calls I heard as doves
> where no doves live or nest
> were most likely common pigeons
> stray cats or owls,
> schoolchildren bullying smaller children,
> traffic noise and garbage trucks,
> rabbits in fear they will be discovered
> by squirrels hiding in the second growth.
>
> Crows.
>
> There were no doves,
> only crows returned
> from northern climates
> in time for starling nesting,
> dandelions and spring plums.
>
> There are no crows.
>
> There are only explosions,
> another in the sand,
> another even Lorca
> would be at loss to understand.
>
> Such doves as there are mourn
> as I watch crows chase
> night birds across a pewter sky
> and pigeon wings litter city streets.
>
>
>
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