to be a dove

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"Two mourning doves flew down. Indescribable softness of color, pink over grey; the shape of doves is maddeningly beautiful. Their feet were pink in the moss. They have tiny little heads. Their descent, awkward, nervous, twittering, is a disaster more than a descent. Their rising is labored and noisy. They are so slow only their extreme nervousness saves them. But beautiful—oh, beautiful—dove grey, dove rose, dove blue, and the exquisite lines of their stupid little heads."

– From "The Inland Island" published in 1969 by Josephine W. Johnson, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1935 at the age of 24 for her first novel, "Now in November."

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