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LEAVING HOME
I’m not sure why I turned to look when I did. In the middle of this morning I glanced over my shoulder to see the bird struggling to fly, and I recognized my little dove. It had left the nest with no help from the mother. I suppose that’s the plan. I guess I had thought the baby would be given some sort of signal and then instruction from the mother when it was time to leave the nest, but that didn’t happen. She was nowhere in sight. I think the signal for doves, perhaps for all birds, is hunger. The little guy, no more than three weeks old, left on his own. I grabbed my camera and went out to take a final set of pictures. It had hopped from a hanging air plant over to a planter of mixed tropical shrubs. I got very close. He just looked at me and sat very still. I took my pictures, resisted the impulse to try to help, and got out of the way to let nature take its course. I have been moved and humbled by the experience of watching the nest for the past couple of weeks. I think there must have been baby doves in the nest when I got back from Norway a couple of weeks ago. I assumed the female was sitting on eggs, but I guess the little guys were hiding out of sight already. The most astounding revelation for me has been how quickly the chicks have grown.

I won’t be able to tell which ones are mine when I see doves flying or sitting around our place, but I will always wonder if I am seeing them. It would be asking too much of nature to reveal it to me.
I STOOD TIPTOE UPON A LITTLE HILL
--John Keats

Linger awhile upon some bending planks
That lean against a streamlet's rushing banks,
And watch intently Nature's gentle doings:
They will be found softer than a Ring-Doves cooings.
How silent comes the water round that bend;
Not the minutest whisper does it send
To the o'erhanging sallows: blades of grass
Slowly across the chequer'd shadows pass.
Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach
To where the hurrying freshness aye preach
A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds;
Where swarms of minnows show their little heads,
Staying their wavy bodies 'gainst the streams,
To taste the luxury of sunny beams
Temper'd with coolness. How they ever wrestle
With their own sweet delight, and ever nestle
Their silver bellies on the pebbly sand.