Mourning Dove

Five days after my father died, 
I passed a brown mourning dove 
perched atop a grade-school fence.

As I ran by, scarcely a foot away 
from its tail, it did not move, 
it did not flutter. Minutes later,

I returned on that same path, 
and the mourning dove was still there. 
This time, I put my eye up to its eye,