JARED CARTER

Mourning Dove Ascending

At the moment of rising, when it takes flight
through the clearing, in the false light of dawn,
the notes of its call stay with you — a sound

you have been drawn toward all of your life,
without knowing why.  Something in that voice
still has the power to summon, even as it fades,

even as the creature's wings begin to make
a different kind of music — an elusive whistling
that spreads in circles, and in overlapping waves.

It is a sound more rare, more hushed than song,
issuing not from the throat but the body,
the body working against time and space,

finding purchase, trusting in the outcome
of that endeavor — the whisper and whirl
of the feathers, the vanishing into the dark.