National Poetry Month ending

Looking out the window of the writing room awhile ago, I noticed a bluebird on a tree branch. It looks as though we've got one pair using the house in front and another pair using the one in back. That helps to cheer me up on an otherwise grumbly, rainy day. We also had a visit this morning from a downy woodpecker, who was nice enough to pose while I got my camera, changed the lens and took his(?) picture.

downy woodpecker on deck baluster               © harrington

We're now reaching the end of our second National Poetry Month together. I've enjoyed it. I hope you have too. As we've written before on My Minnesota, we've found, with a little effort, we can match good to great poems with almost anything going on in life around us. I've learned that a poem often redirects any negative reaction I have to life's tribulations toward a more positive outlook and enhances my upbeat feelings about what's going on in my life. Since, I think, one of the reasons we're all here is to enjoy life when we can, I'm grateful poetry can enhance my life and, I hope, yours. We won't wait until next year before we revisit poetry. Meanwhile, Jane Hirshfield offers her enhanced perspective on a different way we might think about woodpeckers and the fact that we are, indeed, all in this together.

The Woodpecker Keeps Returning

By Jane Hirshfield 

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.

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