Where Are They Now?

   Prior to taking down the more than forty-year-old spruce tree last Friday, the contractor stripped its branches to find, about seventy feet up in the tree, a nest with three baby  birds in it.  He left that part of the tree until the next day, with the hope that the mother bird could somehow relocate the babies. A mourning dove appeared, once the noise and cutting activity had ceased, flying over and around the tree where the nest was, and in and out of the trees in the front of the house. The next day when the  worker climbed the tree, armed with a basket in case the birds were still there, he found them dead.
    Of necessity, the noisy work continued throughout much of the day, and the dove could be seen, and its distinctive notes heard.  When the workers finally stopped and left, the bird flew into the brush beneath the tree, and then out again.  Tonight, two days later, I still hear the sound that doves make, when they cry.  She is still looking.  I know how she feels.