MOURNING DOVES

Gun shots bludgeon the air,

Rattle the corn stalks’ stubble.

I call the mourning doves to feed

On sunflower seeds spilled like

Corn after the harvest.

I shudder with each rapid lift

Of the wings knowing that one falls

Weighted and unheard.

Neither a guitar string nor a piano key

Sounds in the gunner’s air.

I scatter the seed, and I count the doves.

Before me, a man counted yellow chicks

After he found the snake’s skin

Shed at the edge of the cinder block wall.

He counted again when the

Snake lay humped and well-fed

At the galvanized feed trays.

The count had diminished;

Each one subtracted as if it were a game,

And, at each move, he lost another.

Saw them stack up

On the opponent’s side;

Rubbed his chin as every man has

Rubbed his chin sitting on a feed barrel

With a game board on his knees,

Thinking through the next move, counting those left,

After one has been shot, arm uplifted before the face in

One last gesture, the eyes shielded from the sun,

Too bright or too close for the last move,

Summed up for the last count.

I feed the mourning doves,

I feed the hunters,

And I count.

In Memory of William A. Smith

© cmheuer, 2013