Monday Musings: Mourning Morning Dove

This Monday I will be discussing my poem Mourning Morning Dove. I wrote this poem around the same time I wrote A Child's Lament, so it was inspired by my fathers passing as well. Most people don't think about their mortality until someone they love passes away. I have always thought about my mortality because my health is so fragile, but when my father died it brought those thoughts to a new level. He was 59 years old when he died, he was relatively young. His death was such a surprise, he wasn't healthy either so I compared my life to his and really realized that any day I could die.

Every morning I wake up and hear birds singing outside my window, I remember once my father called them morning doves (though I am not sure if they really are). The morning I wrote this poem I awoke to these birds singing louder than normal, as if they knew something had happened. I thought that they were Mourning Morning Dove's so my mind went with that idea and I wrote that poem. I often have themes of birds in my poems, I remember thinking that I wish I was one of them so I could just fly away.

I realized that when I die everything will just go on as it always has in nature. Nature seemed simpler to me at that point because I knew very well that my dad dying changed my life completely. I know that I could die tomorrow and my family and friends would never be the same. I imagined that I was a lone morning dove lamenting my loss. The ending of my poem reflects the futility I feel when it comes to my chronic illness...I keep trying my hardest just to be pushed down again, I keep doing this and will keep doing this until I die. I often feel life is futile, and in the grand scheme of things it is...but to my family and friends my life is anything but futile, my life for them is vital...even if I want to give up flying, I never will because of the people I love.