THURSDAY, JANUARY 29Dr. Tommy Korn and his medical staff worked their magic on me today, and now I have a new, clear lens in my left eye replacing my old cloudy one. Medical science is wonderful, and even more wonderful is the skill of Dr. Korn. I am grateful.

Early this morning I heard the familiar woo-oo-oo song of the mourning doves that have been nesting outside my office window for a couple of years. They're back. They nest twice a year, each time raising two chicks. I took the picture before the eye surgery and wrote a short verse for the BLOG after I got home from the hospital. Thank you Dr. Korn.

Our mourning doves are back
from wherever it is they went
for holiday after they hatched
their two chicks in the nest of
sticks and straw they dropped
haphazardly around under the
the hanging jade plant outside
a room at home where poems
are hatched after words spring
from my imagination and float
around in the swirling thought
machine that makes the verse
about mourning doves coming
and going woo-oo-oo-oo-oooo
like the sad song of mourning,
but it's only human experience
that hears sadness in the song.

They’re the same doves I see
there twice a year so they are
now my doves. I will mark my
calendar to see if they’re back
again the same time next year.