Dawn Song

I don’t know what to name this thing between
you and me. This morning, the botanist of our
birding troop has been talking about the trees.

And until this moment I didn’t know red maples,
in one way or another, wear red in every season,
from the male and female flowers of late winter,

to samara fruits that whirligig down to spring,
and leaves that blaze vermilion throughout autumn.
In the end, ruddy twigs and buds break out before

it all starts over. Nor did I know this woodpecker would
perch among its fiery blooms and lick the flowers as if
it were a hummingbird. Why call it red-bellied, you say.

It’s not really a question; we’ve had this discussion
before. Rose-hooded woodpecker would be a better
name. I nod. Yoke-toed, it clings so tightly to the tree,

the color underneath remains unseen. We hunt songbirds
with binoculars these days, but when humans gave
this one a name, birds were collected by shotgun.

In a row of dead woodpeckers, laid out on a bench,
wounds aside, it would have been the only one with red
on its belly. Here in our group of craning necks,

Nikon straps, and muck boots, we nod and smile. They
think you and I are still a pair. And we’re trying, in our
way, to salvage years of friendship that never quite

bloomed into something else. Red maple leaves can turn
road-sign yellow in the fall, or startle with a pumpkin
glow. The silver bark goes gray and flakes with age.

Its wood is good for making instruments. Necks of violins
and cellos, even drums. And the woodpecker drums
its percussive song. Though the sun comes slow, it calls,

it pounds, under fog and clouds, it joins the dawn song.
Name a color, whether anyone else can see it or not. Call
it anything. It’s morning, we are here, and there is music.