Also invariable present at some indefinable distance are the mourning doves whose plaintive call suggests irresistibly a kind of seeking-out, the attempt by separated souls to restore a lost communion:
Hello… they seem to cry, who… are… you?
And the reply from a different quarter. Hello… (pause) where… are… you?
No doubt this line of analogy must be rejected. It’s foolish and unfair to impute to the doves, with serious concerns of their own, an interest in questions more appropriate to their human kin. Yet their song, if not a mating call or a warning, must be what it sounds like, a brooding meditation on space, on solitude. The game.
~ Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Notes: Related posts from Edward Abbey: Desert Solitaire
I love to lie in bed and listen to their plaintive cries. It is, for me, the essence of summer…
I was waiting for you to drop “Ethereal.” But plaintive cries, essence of summer sweeps me away as well. How do you do it? Swap brains for just a day or two?
Awww, how you do go on. That’s ok, go on… 😉
Give me a moment to wind up the wind bag… 🙂
Ha! Thx for the giggle, DK. 😀
Essence of summer for me too .. and memories of summers as a child. I find them incredibly soothing.
Yes, soothing is the word Val.
call of the wind.
Mourning doves and the smell of fresh cut hay. Laundry on the line. The rattle of Dad’s milk pail on the back porch.
What evocative images you paint….
I hope your writing a book Sandy Sue! You are very good. Love the sound, it is soothing and I think they come with a message for usl. 🙂
It’s amazing how it coos and poops at the same time.
Awwwww, you just had to go there!
I love listening to the Doves every summer morning 🙂 The video is from a ranch in beautiful Western Montana 🙂 the ranch has a good website: http://mpgranch.com/about-us.aspx They are dedicated to research and preserving the land…a gift to us all…
Didn’t know that this is where this video came from….cool…thanks for sharing.