particularly on a still evening as dusk falls
and I hear the mourning doves through the open window,
when I think that maybe you were right,
that had I listened more,
had I tried harder,
perhaps I would have understood more then
of what I now accept.
Usually though I conclude that it could have happened only as it happened,
that we hear only what we are ready to hear
and the remainder is absorbed by the walls,
seeping out again gradually over the ensuing years
when we are more receptive to the meanings thus preserved.
Sometimes I wonder if you wonder also
if there was any truth to the things I said as well,
if your walls are releasing now the words you heard not then.
In truth, the doves have little to do with it, I suppose.
Though they stood witness to all that occurred,
and remain now to remind,
they themselves probably understand nothing of it either.