Balance

by Sy Roth

Tittup of white feathers,
Neve snowfall of them
When they enter the dovecote unwelcomed.
The tenders blink in the whiteout of their squawking.
A soft down rests like a dandruff blanket
On their shoulders and in their hair.

Doves separated in their frenzy seek reconnection,
Finally a calm settles in like the eye of a storm
And the tenders go about their collection duties.

Their rakes muck at the ground.
Doves have left a thick paste of their brew.
Tenders’ faces covered in masks
To dam their malodorous stench.
The coop a stifling prison
The airless aerie where
Life teeter-totters on their expectation.

They all know—
The trees
Wait stoically.
And the tenders know
They fill their baskets with the white droppings.
The doves know for they coo.
When they sing prayerful benedictions to the air,
And when they fill the ground with their gift,
They are one.

The tree blesses them
With a snowy shuddering of its branches
And its dangling fruit.