Poetry
Hope
Emily-Sue Sloane
issue three
A mourning dove rested in the grass
until my gaze from the window
disturbed its meditation on sunlight.
It flew off just as I wondered if it was —
and hoped it wasn’t — dead,
only to be followed by one, two, three,
no, at least a dozen doves rising
out of the perennial flowerbed.
I’d failed to notice them; their feathers
blended in so well with mottled soil
where they pecked and chatted peacefully
about the day and the way time is turning
the dark hours longer and cooler,
cicadas’ songs reaching for stars
hidden within the blue moon’s light,
and acorns already split open on the ground.
I see with new eyes the place where I live,
stories no longer replaying unexamined
inside the parentheses of my mind.
After a journey mapped by falling fences,
joy has startled the landscape alive —
deep greens, earthy scents,
and the wing whistles
of doves taking flight.
About the Author
Emily-Sue Sloane is an award-winning Long Island poet who writes to capture moments of wonder, worry and human connection. She is the author of two poetry books: Disconnects and Other Broken Threads (The Poetry Box, 2024) and We Are Beach Glass (2022). Her poetry has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently All the Women Came & Sang anthology, Avocet, Bards Across the Pond, Mobius, MockingHeart Review and PoetryXHunger. Her poem, “Musical Musing,” is featured in a choral piece of the same name by composer Joan Johnson Drewes. Sloane holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Vassar College.
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