LAS PALOMAS—Pajaros de Paz

LAS PALOMAS—Pajaros de Paz

By Steve Griffen

You rarely see them flying.

It’s as if they’re too modest to compete with the darting golondrinas

Who race and snap like the arc of a cracking whip,

Too demure to mimic the great wheeling circles of the pelicanoes,

Too mundane to whir and hover over blossoms

Like the gem-gaudy colibri.

Instead. their small grey bodies stay close to the earth,

Even their songs subdued as a mother’s lullaby.

Yet, it was your tender beak the bore the olive branch to Noah

To signal the end of God’s watery wrath and hope again for man.

The Holy Spirit could not find a more worthy vessel

To embody has bright essence than the humble paloma