Too-close buzz,
steel-shod electric clippers pulling off
the hair.

Bumblebees in their striped jackets,
cousins of hummingbirds,
not gliding but fired over nectar or beauty,
fierce darts of the sky, spun from sugar,
like my plans, inferred from the unseen
passings of the sun from a too-small cave.

Drone of gophers and voles the un-merry
humming of the earth.

“What are you waiting for?” the question of
the woodpecker as he clears the ringing from
his ears, and I think he wants me to
hunt grubs, banging my head against the
earth or the old oak.

But he is fire-crested and his arrow wings,
edged in silver,
mean only the sky and the rest of his life,
and flying.

I think I understand. He was asking me,
incredulous of sitting on the earth, “What
are you waiting for – wings?”