David Wendl

The Pigeon

A pigeon
is just a dove
come to the city,
exiled from his forests
and mountain cliff sides
where once he roosted

He has left behind
his life as a symbol
of peace
for in place of his homeland
a city now stands
a city that knows him not
as an emissary of nature
but as a rat of the skyscrapers

The pigeon by all accounts
is not troubled by this change
for although the land of his birth
may be gone
he has fashioned himself
a new home
with monstrous soaring cliffs
and rivers of abandoned food

indeed
the former icon of peace
is now content
to live his life
pecking up the crumbs I drop from my muffin
instead of the seeds and berries of the wild,
and cooing melodiously
with the homeless bums on the streets
rather than the music of the forest.