I built my cabin under four trees. It butts up against them. One pine, one ash, one lemon, and one tree I don’t have a name for. The tree I don’t have a name for is the biggest, and this morning there were two doves hooting on it. The sound of doves reminds me of my grandmother, she saved a dove once when I was a boy. She put it in a paper sack and we rode home with it on the bus. I was three or four when she did this, but it was an event that stayed with me all these years. When the dove was healed up my grandmother let it go. I watched her do it. She took the birdcage outside and opened the hatch, and the bird flew out. Ever since I’ve had a soft spot for doves. Except for on one occasion when I was a teenager, I shot a dove dead with a pallet gun. It was sitting on a wire and I stood under it and shot it. I climbed over a fence to see where it fell. I saw it covered in blood dead on the dirt. It broke my heart. I never shot anything again after that. The gun belonged to a friend, and I made up my mind then, that guns were made to use, so I’ve stayed away from them for that reason.
The doves back as I write this. I’m not sure what it means, but it means something I guess. It just flew to the tree with no name and then flew away again.
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