Teodros Kiros - The Crying Dove

The Crying Dove

1 July, 2010 | By Teodros Kiros (Ph.D)

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She flies all day and night, often

alone, and sometimes with a

large group of

twenty and

more. She always separates

herself from the flock early on.

When the

dove manages to

separate away, the sky is filled

with her loud cry, half song

and

half screeching noise. She says

she is lonely, and that the sky is

too large for her, and that she feels too small in it. She wonders about who
creates the sky, and why it is so large, and so luminous. She asks herself if
she could fly to the very top, beyond which there is nothing, and wonders too
what that nothing would be like. She cries as she muses about these things, for
which there is no answer. She wonders if there would be doves in that
nothingness, except that she would not know it. She sings.

I fly everywhere in search of food for my family
High and low
Looking up beyond the horizon
On good days, I collect dry leaves
Sometimes nothing at all.
My lord takes care of the rest
To the limits of the sky
My lord makes me fly.

I sing words of joy
I, the wanderer
The lover of the sky.

When she is done singing, she returns to the task of collecting food for her
large family. Her joyous eyes look content with a job well done. She has had a
good day. She flies home. At the entrance, she finds doves huddling. A dove
had
just died, after a long illness.

Tears feel her up, and she looks up to the nothingness.

Dr. Teodros Kiros, is a Senior Editor at Ethio Quest News. His weekly
column appear here