A Pileated Woodpecker Moved into the Sycamore Tree Outside My Window.

 

Was it a dream?

 

He with bright crest

has come heralding the news:

I am released from the curse

of hunting the restless ones!

Be banished perilous fools!

 

But the question remains:

Has being born

of a father with riot blood

bound me to a life of fulsome wandering?

 

Did my heart just break that once

when I was 8 years old

and stay broken?

 

I think of this as I face the golden landscape

of my ile ori, my inner self.

 

Among karmic cliffs

drinking in horizonal sunlight

listening to water

allowing young truths to take root

calling to the dark moon

conversing with Hekate and the woodpeckers.

Poem by Merenda Cecelia

Art by Peter Sugarman