To Do

           now tapping a pencil, trying to remember

the next thing—what was it?—when a shape

           drops from the sky, shudders and stops

at a tree—red blotch—whack, whack.

           A creature big enough on this slow spring day

to make you mutter, Ho-

           meric, exactly like the popeyed codger

in the John Wayne flick when he sees

           how the bride and groom have broken

their bed. A big, wild woodpecker. Imagine

           how it would feel to glimpse, like this,

an ivory-billed, that one they say

           (if that’s what they saw) is the last,

epic of the land, boomerang to be

           and not. But could it be

this one will make it for real?

           Make it beyond lit screens,

this pileated inkling now hopping into brisk beats

           of loopy flight. And now almost

in your grasp, the day’s next thing,

           when a rattled, rising shriek riddles the air.

Again. And again you’re just beginning:

           a nest of electric light, a boy

waiting for the bus and laughing

           at the cartoon bird laughing like crazy.