by Woodson

The shape of the egg is perfect. It contains and protects the promise of life, yet it needs the life force from two separate sources to give this promise life.

I was a woodpecker not too long ago. I had always been that bird, living in the old-growth forest, raising my families, spending my lives in contented bliss. This was the life I knew; it is what I am best suited for.

I am a builder, a protector, a father and a mate for life. I am a teacher of the ways to get bugs out of snags. I share the raising of my mate's eggs with joy, and together we share the raising of our children. We give our all to each other. There is no question in each of our minds that the other would give their life for the other. No question, no doubts.

Today I went to the forest, to the old-growth forest, to be home again. When I'm there, I am home. There is no fear, only comfort. The trees that have been there forever are still there, standing as holy sentinels. They welcomed me back; they were glad to see me there. I walked through the woods until I found the bug snag, freshly carved by others like me. I sat on the forest floor to wait for the inevitable return of the birds to harvest the bugs they had beckoned.

The sense of time passing has no place with you when waiting for woodpeckers to return. You might wait minutes, hours, perhaps until tomorrow. Maybe this snag is played out, and they have found better diggings somewhere else. I don't know. Anyway, after some time, my human body was nagging me to leave this place, so I began to leave.

After a short walk from the snag, I heard the cry of the pileated woodpecker. It rang through the forest like the grandest symphony! The song was what Beethoven was searching for in the Seventh, what Chopin strove for all of his life and what Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan came closest to attaining. It filled me with awe! It was so close!

I stopped and waited for the cry to come again. Silence. The forest is grand in its silence, so spectacular. I heard in the distance the cry of the young ones. Then I heard the cry again, this time in front of me. I decide to walk down the path, towards the song. The pileated is now on my right, first following and then leading.

I've come to believe that it is a she. I might have been projecting my own needs, but I don't think so.

I'm walking this path in the old-growth forest, a pileated female keeping me company. What a marvelous place for this old woodpecker to be! But then I began to wonder if she was leading me out as if to say "Leave this place; it's your time to go away and change."

I thought about this for a while and told her "If I knew how to come back, I'd be flying with you right now! It's not the kind of thing I have a choice over. If I can, next time around, I'll be with you."

Human brains being what they are, right away another thought comes into my head. Maybe she was not leading me out, but following me, crying to me, "Please come back!"

I hear the cry of the pileated, following me through the woods, beckoning me to return.

This is more than my lonely soul can handle. The tears are flowing freely now. I'm crying; Roy Orbison is crying with me. The pileated is still with me, crying her song to the forest and me.

My next waking thought is the waitress, asking me did I want something to drink with my order? I tell her "Water." She goes and gets it, brings it back, and, sitting down across from me, takes my hand in hers. She gives me the sweetest look of love.

That's not what really happened. That's what I wanted to happen. Actually she was looking at me and blushing and I at her. We sort of connected for an instant. I wanted to tell her, "You're a sweet young girl; I'm 46. I'm too damned old for you. It would only break our hearts.

"Maybe some other time and place we could have been for each other."