I drafted this on 5/8/23 in my notebook, after a visit to my father in April. But I just now got to sit with it and type it out, and work on it.
Red-Bellied Woodpecker
for my papa
the preserves are hushlands, their paths mud
and a grayness hazes over the leafing
sandhill cranes dodder like two-legged fawns
while whooping cranes unfold like wet origami
and rosy-eyed white pelicans put on their yellow fins:
plate their breeding beaks for the season
The branches are bold with invisible stirrings
he finds robins obvious, dismissible
but listens, head cocked, for the red-bellied woodpecker
churr-churr-churr, thrra thrra thrra, brrrrr
hear that? he asks
but all I hear are robins, all I see
is what I’ve seen before: bluejays and blackbirds
a startling pair of electric swallows, nesting
sometimes, more elusively, a mote in my periphery
like dust in my eye, backlit by sky
there! I say, pointing where to point his lens
I don’t know what it is, but it’s something you will like.
it is, it is, it always is a thing he dotes on—
every rara avis another exclamation
bluebird! flycatcher! ruby-crowned kinglet!
these flecks I barely see, he knows by sight and sound
though forever prophesying, peering around
for the red-bellied woodpecker
that dot, that speck, that prick-your-finger red
somewhere overhead
there! I say
where? he asks
just there.
got him, says my father
good spotting, he tells me
praising me for pointing out a bird I cannot see
until he shows me with his camera
zoomed in
C.S.E. Cooney 