A Colony, a Squabble, a Screech of Gulls    

by Rita Moe


I was the girl who sidled into the room,
took a seat in the back row,
knew the answer but didn’t raise her hand.
The mourning dove was my heartbird 
with its sad, haunting song.  

Now, at seventy-five, invisibility
requires very little work. 
Even dressed in orange
and carrying protest signs,
heads don’t turn. 

Don’t get me wrong:
I’m still an introvert,
still love the dove’s descending sigh.

Now, though, I would savor striding
onto a dock crowded with gulls
just to be in that cacophony,
that buoyancy,
that rising
of white into white.


* * * * *

Rita Moe is a poet, knitter, & gardener.  She is the author of two poetry chapbooks: Sins & Disciplines and Findley Place; A Street, a Ballpark, a Neighborhood.  Now retired from a Minneapolis investment firm, she is the mother of two grown sons and lives with her husband in Roseville, MN.