The Dove

It nested there,
as they all do_
because this is what they do:
one layer of dried sticks
laid over the old,
held fast by secretions,
generations of that.

It cooed against grey walls,
bouncing off prayers
for a thousand years.
Now from a sheikh,
once from a priest,
a warlord,
an augur
that read the signs
in the dove’s entrails
searching for hope.