Ivory-Billed Woodpecker (Audubon), Sonnet #422

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My Human Disguise.


















It was said you could catch but not keep one.

A farmer once tied a male to a chair,

Which soon was kindling and the rope undone,

And, instead of a door, nothing but air.

Just one could rip apart a ten inch branch

In minutes, and ravage an entire ranch

If it was built of bug-infested logs.

Its crazed cackle once filled forests and bogs,

But today it’s feared the Ivory-billed’s extinct.

I’ve watched its cousin, the Pileated,

Hammer a limb with its head into dust

And thought, does such an addled creature think,

“I too could one day be uncreated.

There must be Ivory-billed left. There must!”