A dove sinks through the air.

like a little boat,

lost in the ocean with a hole in its side.

A languid storm torments her,

slowly and silently,

until the beauty in her body is run out by grey.

Light from her face is dwindled to a shadow,

a hollow frame,

and each bone is standing high

– out of place.

Yet, through the cold she flies

to a hill where time stops

and she bathes in a pool of silence.

A fleeting moment of peace dances in winter twilight,

and forgotten

is the perpetual creep towards an ashen flood.

For a stolen second grey fades

and life saturates:

there is light. And it triumphs.

But too soon the evening tide must pull her away,

feather by feather,

clawing, until she sinks, bare, into a dark sea of stone.

Her eyes glaze open in a search for sleep,

and tortured by vague sentience:

she floats, transient and motionless in a calm panic.

With cruel ease, the night greets the dove:

he takes her

piece

by

piece

then

all at once.

The ochre brush of her life, in time, is short

but she leaves a drop

golden and beautiful in a swelling sea of grey.

And that is how the dove

lost her flight.

In memory of Katy Dove 1970-2015