Sometimes, the dog thinks she’s a bird. Or the distinction between dog and bird becomes meaningless, so complete is her attention on a cluster of mourning doves in a blackjack oak or the turkey vultures circling overhead. There are vultures wherever there are people, but especially, it seems, here. They catch air currents as we walk circles in a dark wood alongside my parent’s retirement village in the Jersey pines.  High holy pandemic, and the mourning doves sing like gossip. […]

Categories: essay