From early childhood I associate the call of the mourning dove with days spent rambling aimlessly around Shelter Island, where my family spent part of every summer. We stayed in what had been the servant’s quarters of a stately old manor house, on a formerly grand estate that had fallen into disrepair. There were ornamental ponds overgrown with weeds and orchards that had been taken over by deer. In the midst of the hot day, invisible in the coolness of trees by some lonely road, I would suddenly hear the descending notes of a mourning dove. It always gave me a sad sort of thrill. And ever since, those notes have meant to me the peculiar sadness of childhood and the kind of beauty that emerges from stillness and decay.