‘I would that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!’
-W.B. Yeats

Land-Locked, City Dweller’s Lament

I mourn at dawn with ashen doves
rustling in nests of refuse
faggot butts and paper scrapping
littered amidst the fading leaves
roses singed by acid dewdrops
choke from mist infused with poison
vines erupting from concrete tombs
now cling to rain-swelled guttered eaves
may we rise from heavy slumber
remedy our careless keeping
see past gray horizons blighted
sprawling towers of brick and steel
beautiful dawn would I know you
wild, pristine, unobstructed
left untouched, nurtured, protected
would then, the mourning doves still grieve

~kat

What started as a lovely morning stroll, serenaded by doves coo-cooing took an unfortunate turn. I hadn’t set out to write this poem, but the muse insisted. For Jane Dougherty’s ‘A Month With Yeats’ – Day Twenty-Six with the verse above from Yeats’ poem, ‘The White Birds’.