Woodpecker



Where are you, woodpecker?

I hear your beat as you stretch

Your neck and attack the bark

A steady sound slows the dark



As your beak drives wood out

The gems you seek come about  

And the liveness of your rhythm

Taps out beats heard in quiet room



Filled with sounds of tears falling

From eyes wet with a new calling

As puffed-out cheeks now swollen 

With pain, are creased with stolen



Tugs on the skins of a quite loud drum

Whose beat matches yours as you hum 

And bark-chips from the tree you attack

Fly wild - hitting others hard in the back

 

- Tristram



Christopher W. Thomas

9:15am Wed. Feb. 11th, 1998



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