(with apologies to Barbara Lewis, who recorded the song "Hello, Stranger," in the 1960s)
As I walked under
a Norwegian spruce
today, a dove cooed
three times.
It sounded like someone
blowing carefully
on a conch shell:
the hard c in coo
had dissolved.
Three musical notes:
what a nice thing
to say to a stranger
walking by, I thought--
how sweetly polite,
how tonal, coaxing a
smile out of me.
hans ostrom 2023
