She has felt her wings

Dove that ventured outside, flying far from the dovecote:
housed and protected again one with the day, the night,
knows what serenity is, for she has felt her wings
pass through all distance and fear in the course of her wanderings.

The doves that remained at home, never exposed to loss,
innocent and secure, cannot know tenderness;
only the won-back heart can ever be satisfied: free,
through all it has given up, to rejoice in its mastery.

Being arches itself over the vast abyss.
Ah the ball that we dared, that we hurled into infinite space,
Doesn't it fill our hands differently with its return:
heavier by the weight of where it has been.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926)



This lovely Mourning Dove had a small dip in the birdbath, the catbird beat her to it and had splashed most of the water away. She rested on the edge and suddenly unfurled her wing and let me approach. They are usually so shy, but this one trusted my advances and clicking Nikon. After a bit, she stood up, looked me in the eye and flew off with the characteristic dove cooing and whir of wings.

I'm lost in my thoughts today, it should be the 62nd birthday of someone who was once everything to me. Unbelievably, she was murdered by a mentally unstable person nearly twenty years ago in the safe kingdom of Sweden. The world has missed what she might have been, but while she lived she surely felt her wings.