JASMINE & JEWEL (2) JEWEL (Little J)

For photo illustration, click on:
 www.flickr.com/photos/beaneryonlineliterarymagazine/
To read JASMINE & JEWEL: A LOVE STORY, the first part of this two part poem, click on JASMINE & JEWEL: A DOVE STORY .  It's filed in the POETRY category on this site.

Little J, my Jewel, was smaller, fragile

yet alert; she toddled in the dirt and tried to fly.

Weaker, for reasons I don't understand,

barely two weeks old, four inches long

she hadn't the strength of her sister Jazz.

One day, several doves came to eat seeds

but they ignored her and flew away,

even her Mom and Dad left her alone

in the planter that was her home.

Little J stretched her neck in vain,

flapped her wings, opened her beak

pleading "feed me please"

Her distress and pain were plain

to me, and I instinctively knew

she was being abandoned. . .to die.

I watched as she jumped

from the planter to the end table,

huddled beneath it, while the night air

cloaked her. . .

I found her in the morning, half dead,

cupped her tiny body in my palm,

cried and cried

my heart truly torn

at this tiny bird so utterly forlorn!

Stroking downy feathers I massaged

her chilled body to life

and for a few brief hours,

she revived in the gentle warmth of the sun;

but when evening shadows fell. . .