The Second Dove

Please Sir, Weren’t there two doves in the Ark? Yes, two.

Then what happened to the second dove, To the one left unpraised, uncelebrated? Sitting up there in the Ark’s creaking rafters Did it fester with jealousy?

And the dove Noah chose, Was it God suggested it? Or was the choice arbitrary?

All his life such questions obsessed him.

Old now, he lies in a hospice, His body, his own Ark, Adrift in a sea of sweat, Is creaky and dying,

And through all his pain there threads A song that leads him from panic, The song of the one not chosen, the one Left behind to comfort him.

Brian Patten, 1988