Northern Flicker, Highway 2 (
Colaptes auratus) Marc BeaudinYou hold the yellow of sunlight
in wings and tail,
fill the pines with your manic laughter
My first glimpse of you:
a flash of gold
changing a simple forest
into a place of magic
where anything could happen
and sunlight flowed from the darkness of the wood
Your eye is the black of the raven
Your feet write incomprehensible haiku in the mud
Your beak is a blade of obsidian
Your tongue is a long, sharp thorn
Your blood
is so alarmingly red
and I’m sorry I didn’t hit my brakes
quite hard enough.
Marc Beaudin has published three chapbooks of poetry: “When
God Was a Child,” The Lost Writings of Miscellaneous Jones,”
and “Saginaw Songs” with fellow poet Al Hellus. His first novel,
A Handful of Dust, was published in 2002. His work has been chosen
for inclusion in an anthology of contemporary American poetry
in Turkish translation to be published in Ankara, Turkey. Information
on his work can be found at:
http://healtheearth.tripod.com.