So Change the Doves
The countryside wills a spring collected from
all rain barrels for miles around,
and its prayer congregates in details edging
open spaces just at the treelines
with movement in the groves again
and bushes full of wings
like brushes dipped in paint
searching for a sky.
The fact of happening every time can’t take
this shine away. So change the doves
in creek-bed songs, they pond and fill a greenery
and rustle next to houses.
L. Ward Abel’s work has appeared in Rattle, The Reader, The Istanbul Review, The Worcester Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Versal, hundreds of others, and he is the author of three full collections and ten chapbooks of poetry, including Jonesing For Byzantium (UKA Press, 2006), American Bruise (Parallel Press, 2012), Little Town gods (Folded Word Press, 2016), A Jerusalem of Ponds (erbacce-Press, 2016), The Rainflock Sings Again (Unsolicited Press, 2019), Floodlit (Beakful, 2019), and The Width of Here (Silver Bow, 2021). Abel resides in rural Georgia.