If that woodpecker didn’t tap out a message for me
as bark shattered all around his bill, clattered
to the sidewalk (this was a city woodpecker — I am
a city person) that morning as I walked my kids
to school and then myself to work. He said, or
she said, something about bugs running like rivers
inside the tree, or something about the sun that day,
or thanks for stopping to watch and listen, even though
we were already late. I don’t know — it was hard
to make out. I don’t speak woodpecker. It was
indistinct, though staccato. But I know it said
something to me, the bugs, the sun, or the tree,
or maybe just to itself.