On my walks in the bosque
I have collected woodpecker feathers
and have enough to make a feather fan for a friend.
Since she has told me she cannot settle down,
and has told me she is an orphan too,
this fan will be a power talisman
to help her find a place to settle in
as the woodpecker makes its home in hard wood,
let it give her power to chisel herself out a home
some place, some city, some day.
Do not waste time with the fearful
bimbos clacking cheetah teeth
for whimsical pleasures--
love from deep in the heart-wells
where ancient sands glimmer up through the water--
pray to the woodpecker
to help us make a home
in the hard wood of our words,
pray to the woodpecker
to bless us
making our actions, behavior and gestures,
entrances for people seeking refuge from the rain.
last two stanzas from #27, Poems Along the Rio Grande, Jimmy Santiago Baca, New Directions Press.
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