Morning's Doves
Trompe-l'œil L’Assemblage by Michael Douglas Jones ©2022
Original artwork SOLD at Gallery 322
This war, waged in wilderness, in city streets, and in all directions therefrom, leaves a lawless landscape of raiders, deserters, and ne’er-do-wells. At sunrise, we follow the smoke, over a ridge, to find burning homes where soldiers and looters are leaving with as much as they can muster. I have seen so many mothers starving, left with only the clothes they carry, holding hungry babies on their hips. Mornings find them foraging along the roads, like mourning doves, sorrowful in their song, scratching in the soil for bits of seed and sustenance. We give what small rations we have in our haversacks, but cannot give them the peace they seek. They do not cry or complain; their eyes hold no tears for themselves. If they hold hope at all, it is for the future of the children.
I tell them that soon life will be better, but my eyes betray me, having seen the life leaving from too many children of other mothers.
It will be better, morning dove, it will be.
~Michael Douglas Jones
Parcel №10
