A poem by O. Alan Weltzien

As my friend reads
an explication of a spiritual
text, I watch a woodpecker
on a dead trunk jutting
above Wrong Creek.
It never pecks, barely
perches and peers before
it flashes up then dives
towards the creek
or flutters away only
to return. It neither
stays nor abandons
its chosen post, lands
only to leave then
arrive, a sprite forever
back
              and
                          forth.

I watch its antic round
in evening sunlight,
compose a homily
about restless loyalty,
the eternal circle,
the dance between stasis
and flight, home and away.
Before I finish, the bird
abandons its fleet
pattern and flies off.

This work was featured in our spring/summer 2020 issue.