All those years and I never realized
why I found the mourning dove so interesting
until you pointed out
that morning we stood by the icy window
its resemblance to Robert Penn Warren—
the secretive eyes, soft royal neck,
and the mild, unruffled demeanor.It was the day after a garrulous night
of champagne and shrimp, lamb and red wine
and we were watching a huddle of them
pecking around in the fresh snow under the feeder
(Pulitzer Prize winners all)
and your comment, so astute and perfectly weird,
made me feel enclosed again in the coded talk
of friendship, that tall pagoda
where companions can sit on pillows
and observe the great China of life filing by
and say whatever comes to mind.
—Billy Collins, from Influence, in the collection The Art of Drowning
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