Before the alarm sounds,
before the pipes begin knocking in the walls,
Three soft notes falling into the dark
again and again
like somebody trying gently
not to wake the house.
They settle on the power lines
outside my bedroom window.
Most mornings I never see them,
only hear that low hollow calling
moving through the first gray light.
The world gets louder afterward.
Garbage trucks clanging down the street.
Engines turning over in cold driveways.
Somebody’s dog barking at nothing.
Sometimes my dog barking at nothing.
But the doves come first.
Always first.
And there is comfort in that.
The way they return every morning
without fail.
The way their voices soften the room
before the day fully enters it.
Some mornings their call feels lonely to me.
Not sad exactly.
More like walking through a room
where people once laughed often.
The air still holding something of them.
So I lie there listening
while the lines outside shift softly in the wind,
the birds adjusting their small feet above the street.
And it occurs to me
how quiet grief is in nature.
Nothing dramatic.
Just repetition.
Just a soft sound returning
before daylight.
By then the sky is beginning to pale.
The doves lift suddenly from the wire,
wings cutting once through the cool air
before disappearing into the trees.
But their voices stay behind awhile longer.
And even after the room has filled with morning,
I can still hear them
somewhere inside it.
GBS jr
2026
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