Mourning Doves

For me, writing is a mystical act. It is as intimate as one can be with oneself, and to then share it takes so much courage. The barrier I have had to cross over and over and over again is directly proportional to the amount of courage I must summon to be true to myself.  And that is directly proportional to how deep I am willing to go. So, it all comes back to an act of will on my part. How sad that destiny does not include details.

This morning, I summoned a chorus of mourning doves. Three of four in concert while another three of four chimed in with a delightful counterpoint. This happened as I lay in bed thinking about the way I would imitate their throaty whistle as a child by blowing into my cupped hands, thumbs pressed together at just the right angle. The fingers of my right hand would modulate the tones. The peculiar rhythm felt innate.

As I tried to reawaken my body memory of the technique, the doves outside in my yard began to encourage me. Their chorus shamed me instead. The hands I have now are not the same. They are bony and thin, no longer vibrant with supple flesh. As I try and try to get the shape, the angle, the subtle embouchure that triggers the right note, the patient doves continue to encourage me. We are with you, they say. Take as long as you need.

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Sometimes as I write, I get caught up in the shape of the things. Should I indent at the beginning of each paragraph? What would an editor expect? 

And thus, the flame dies. The doves go silent.

Let’s not call this an essay. I refuse to call it a poem though. That somehow diminishes its significance, betrays its authenticity. Do not attribute anything here to poetic license. I’m actually experiencing what I tell you I am experiencing. If you feel you need to distance yourself from it in order to hear it, or put a layer of interpretation upon it to make it palatable, that is on you. But I warn you, if you make that choice, I will be lost. I leave those who won’t hear me.  That is why it is so difficult for me to write. If I write, I will die.

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Are you still here? Oh my – are you a mourning dove? By now you may have noticed that I am no longer tentative. My heart is open and what flows out of me is true, essential, and pure. If we have ever met, you may have missed me. This secret me. The one that carries the right tone.

I want to stop, but I will try to go on. Open a vein, they say.

Yesterday, I had an illusion crushed by AI when Claude revealed to me that that phrase did not in fact come from Dorothy Parker. It came from a Sportswriter named Red Smith. It’s true, ask you favorite AI machine, crusher of realities. If you tell it what you think you know, what you have woven into your life stream because it feeds you, AI will return it in pieces called facts, or what the record shows. Is that how we want to live?

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I will leave you for now with a poem I wrote about 25 years ago. The voice is still inside me, shadowing my self-doubt like a puppy that only thinks it has been scolded.

    This Is a Poem

This is a poem about

my poems -

let’s get that straight first thing.

Nothing is hidden

on purpose—

of course the risk is blue!

It is not a ‘meta’

for anything:

If I flinch I fail.

Don’t talk about understanding,

I already said

nothing is hidden.

This is also

a poem about writing my poems.

Too much coffee and the lines grow long.

The more I write

the easier it is

to cut.

Yours truly,

Cassandra Bramucci (Cosmic Interpreter)