He spoke with a solemn resonant voice

saying in this time of the long dark

descend

 

down

down into darkness   unseeing

unknowing

 

stay in the dark

unmoving

still

 

Unseeing   unknowing

how are we to live

in the long dark

 

angels   indifferent

pass by us

with their transparent wings

 

As if a monk

a Savonarola

a leaden voice accuses

 

we made the catastrophe

made earth a grave

now we must descend

 

down into the long dark

unseeing   unknowing

and the children. . .

 

at that thought

he crumbled

fumbled in silence

 

then resumed

his voice softened

his eyes moving among us

 

as if measuring

asking what lives in your heart

your soul

 

Behind him – a woodpecker

black and white and vivid red

perched against an old oak

 

clinging with his two-hooked feet

his tail an angled board

pressing against black bark

 

his skull filled with tiny cross-bones

concentrating   expanding

withstanding his own hammering

 

attack tack tack  tack

able to withstand a thousand times

the force of gravity

 

The questioner asks for silence

 

raises a heavy bronze bowl

in his left hand   his right hand

fingers press together as one

 

circling

circling the rim

sounding vibrations

expanding

then fading

 

the woodpecker holds still

still

listening

 

longer then our shifting

our talking

our leaving

 

I think I know

what held his being in thrall