That Woodpecker
Outside my office window this
black and white, red-capped woodpecker
ratta-tat-tatts, ratta-tat-tatts pecking
a bug trail up the apple tree branch.
Startled, or hungry for more,
or sated perhaps, swish, the
woodpecker flies away—
vanishes—before I can say,
“Woodpecker, when you die
you will never know it.”
Neither will I.
--James Ciletti
