The Knock

In Vermont I'd hear this strange knocking sound high in the trees. I used to think they were Pileated Woodpeckers, but last fall I heard the same sound here in Waltham where we have no Pileateds. (Too much Oak in Metro-West Ma, Vt is full of softer pine and birch.)

I know no one publishes poems like this. Still I started it last fall and on this mean Fall Hermine day thought it maybe seasonal again.


The Knock

We think he's some breed of woodpecker
  without a hollow sounding block,
In branches high, no good for drumming,
  instead he speaks just  the word 'Knock!'
Our Sapsuckers when in the mood,
  will drum upon aluminum roofs,
Our Downys squeak a common call,
  their beak’s to meek to drum at all,
Rude Flickers ‘Yip’ from mid tree wood
  where rotting, bugs and ants are good,
Pileateds carve sap wells in trunks,
  silent, and almost as low skunks, 

Yet our Knockers roost so way high,
  where branches wave, too thin and spry,
How can he call his mate to come,
  high up where wood’s too thin to drum?
Then, kind Nature taught him "Say this word,
  since you can’t drum like other birds,"  
That’s why on high you'll hear him call,
  Hello-ing ‘Knock!’
    from Spring to Fall