Dove Hunter

Fear has flown! The Southern Unknown! Words painted on dry, weathered wood. Shrines of bone and feathers of the dove. Under hot clouds of Texas and Mexico border towns, our signs weather in sweltering, dry farmlands thirsty for rain.

A scorpion with dragonfly wings floats on a thermal mirage, the mysterious savior, the Dove Hunter, the Southern Unknown. They say he takes doves from flight. Sacrificial doves cover the cracked dirt of the poor, hungry farms. He comes only in the starving droughts to feed the people.

We build the altars of dove bones and feathers. Our candles collect webs and dust, too dangerous to light in a land of burn bans. The altars are riddled with pesos, scattered all around the unforgiving earth. Some are wrapped with rattlesnake carcasses and leather braids adorned with coyote teeth.

Is the Dove Hunter from God? Is he of the Devil? Most of us are too gracious to care.

Among the people our altars grow. Until the rains. Until we gather in chorus…Fear has flown! The Southern Unknown!