Enjambing not/yield, which would normally seem poor practice, works well here, stressing the notting that they're doing.

I don't have a suggestion for the ending. The current one, feeling a bit of a non-sequitor, is thought-provoking.

I like the ending, and the sudden jump to Oahu, but I agree that loves/doves feels rhyme driven.

Hilary, what's odd is that we might say a pair of quail but not a pair of dove for these monogamous birds. I'm trying to think of other species, other than deer, that get this odd singular treatment. I sat on my son's deck this afternoon and saw a few doves. I guess it's their spring migration time.

Incidentally, in Shakespeare's delightful song about spring, we see "turtles tread." I remember my high school teacher saying something about how that's exactly how turtles move. However, I later learned that "turtles" are in fact turtle doves and that "tread" has an older sexual meaning that goes back to Chaucer.

Well, there's (there are?) sheep.

Hello Gywnn,

On the construction of the doves/loves rhyme, the line ending with "love" stands out in how it is disconnected from what comes before and what comes after; in that it introduces a love motif which is abandoned as the poems carries on with the previous motif of the doves trying to subsist.

I suppose you try to get away with the line by treating it as a throwaway observation which does not necessarily have to connect with what is around it, and the rhyme is not that problematic to me, but I wonder if you can find something else which works better, even while still using the technique of a disconnected throwaway observation.

It is always fun to see what one can do with the old done many times rhyme pairs.

Yeah!

Maybe the grackles and doves need a sonnet apiece. I think I tried to pack too much into a single poem. The doves are outliers here, but in Hawaii they're just as numerous as grackles, favoring supermarket lots. I read that they aren't native to Hawaii. The multitudes I saw were about the size of sparrows. Zebra doves, I think. So I'll be back with a new version.