A visitor to the neighborhood

by Pat Laster

        One morning recently, from my roost on the front-porch, south-facing swing, I heard behind me what sounded like a Florida dove! At first—like I did when I was a child––I thought it must be an owl. But there were no trees in the hayfield beyond the property line where the sound came from.
        Mesmerized, I walked from the porch toward the repetitious sound. It came from the giant hackberry that helps delineate the yard-yard from the rest of the acreage. I saw movement, and soon a gray bird flew west into a smaller hackberry. It called/sang again.
         “How in the world did you get so far afield?” I asked my visitor.
          Last year at this time, I sat on the balcony of a high-rise in Fort Pickens and watched doves flit around the light standards. I loved their calls. How different they sounded from the soft, gentle coos of Arkansas doves.
         For the next two days, I heard the Florida bird pair. Googling “doves” I discovered this visitor is a Eurasian-collared dove. Whatever they are and however they got to be in my yard, I care not. As long as they stay here, and bless me with their calls, I can transport myself to the cool Gulf breeze where my older son and his family live.
        Since I returned from Piggott on Friday, I’ve heard the visitor only one time, alas.
        On Saturday—the first opportunity to sleep late after the week’s 8 a.m. breakfast calls, and the 9 a.m. class calls—I awoke at the unusual hour of 5:25 a.m. I had to cut hydrangeas to harden for a Sunday church bouquet. While engaged at that pleasant task—66 degrees—I decided to cut three newly-bloomed, pure white gardenias and some long stems of tansy (white heads).
         That done, I sat in the swing with coffee and the newspaper(s) and mused:
         The difference between a downtown (any city) inn/hotel/motel and home is the relative quiet of the latter—no trains during the night and almost no vehicular traffic, especially at six a.m. In any size city, traffic begins early. Even in this relatively rural area, folks leave early to drive to Little Rock or Hot Springs or Conway. But not on a Saturday.
         The most noticeable difference between any city and home is the abundant birdsong.           Mockingbirds seem to be constantly changing their “tunes.” (Is that like writers revising?)
          One neighbor’s Doberman greeted my presence—after a week’s absence—with what I call a threatening growlbark. I ignored it. Another neighbor’s backyard rooster crowed—as per instinct.
         Other birds with “inside” voices reminded me of farm women going about the chores of early morning. They were in the background. Even beyond those sounds, the mourning doves across the road called and responded.
        The sun rose on my left. I looked up, and a contrail—like a pencil mark—led from the sun behind the trees upward and diagonally across the sky. A symbolic sight I took to mean: rise,  shine, give God the glory, and get to work. 
        The Florida doves might yet come back.