In this fascinating poem by California poet Jane
Hirshfield, the speaker discovers that through paying attention to an event
she has become part of it; indeed, she has become inseparable from the
event and its implications. This is more than an act of empathy. It speaks,
in my reading of it, to the perception of an order into which all creatures
and events are fitted, and are essential.
The Woodpecker Keeps Returning
The woodpecker keeps returning
to drill the house wall.
Put a pie plate over one place, he chooses another.
There is nothing good to eat there:
he has found in the house
a resonant billboard to post his intentions,
his voluble strength as provider.
But where is the female he drums for? Where?
I ask this, who am myself the ruined siding,
the handsome red-capped bird, the missing mate.
Poem copyright © 2005 by Jane Hirshfield from
her forthcoming book After (Harper Collins, 2006), and reprinted by permission of the
author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The
Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of
Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
This article appears in Aug 25-31, 2005.
