The distinctive knocking gave away
the woodpecker, but it took several minutes
to locate its position high up in the tree.
The pileated kind, from the Latin pileatus
meaning wearing a cap, in this case red
like a cardinal’s in the Catholic church,
the cleric and the bird continually seeking
what’s harder to grasp than it should be.
I wanted to photograph the woodpecker,
yet every time I was ready to click, having
zoomed in on its long beak hard at work
pecking away at the oak, it slipped out of
view behind the trunk, or flew to a nearby
tree, as if it sensed what I was hoping for
and knew how to frustrate my achieving it,
matching each of its own defeats with mine.
I’d wanted to arrest its motion to appreciate
its beauty for a longer time, not on its terms,
but mine, and to share the moment with friends
who are not walkers of the woods like I am,
to render it for them as if they’d been there,
too—the way a poet attempts to succeed,
yet often fails, the import elusive, fleeting,
difficult to capture as it flits across the mind.
