Woodpecker
Humminfbird Featured Poem. Woodpecker
by Jeffrey Harrison
At first I thought the pileated woodpecker
that lifted up from the yard as we came home
from a walk in the woods, flapping
away on long black wings that curved
up at the tips and flashed white
underneath, might be a visitation
from my father, who’d died that week
ten years before. The bird came back
after we went indoors, and started hacking
at the rotten stump of a maple
to get at the carpenter ants inside,
its long-beaked, red-crested head
chopping like a pickaxe into the soft
heart of the stump, and flicking chunks
aside with mechanical efficiency,
sending them arcing into the yard.
It was just doing what it needed to do
to survive, yet we watched through the window
amazed by its relentlessness,
like someone making the same
obvious point over and over,
until we gave in to the amusement
I know my father would have felt
at the way, between bursts of pecking,
its head popped up from the hollowed-out stump
like a jack-in-the-box, beak raised
at an angle that looked either jaunty
or quizzical, as though asking something
of us, but not waiting for an answer,
which, in any case, we wouldn’t have had.
Editor’s Note: Woodpecker was selected as a Hummingbird Featured Poem for the joyous feeling it evokes as Harrison deftly intertwines the mundane, nature, the woodpecker’s approach to the task at hand described in very human terms, a touch of spirituality, humor, and the obvious love of the memory of Harrison’s father, who became integral to the poem’s “story.” And, of course the ending… so true to life, especially from the human perspective. To which I add: Ah, life.
Published in The Common, April 22, 2024, Harrison is a “new to us” poet. He has authored six anthologies and his work has also been published in several additional poetry publications.
