THE WOODPECKER by Jamiu Ahmed

THE WOODPECKER

Whooping are the howls of the wind 

— Piercing as the cry of an owl. The 

night is mute, gloomy as the clouds

Under the Iroko tree — where the cull

ghosts of midnight children gather to

chant chivaree with the voice of the tree:

   "we have seen the color of death     mother had spat up her seed        father rejected the sacrifice         we stand at the middle         in between life and death       as caravan of heaven and earth         Only this tree knows           why the wind howls eerily       every night isn't for the flickers:      that peck holes in ripened trees          then hide among the clouds           but Iroko doesn't fight on time"

"Hearken to the voice of the tree"

It holds the secret of wistful tales 

Of morrow's entombed cowries 

Uprooted by the green-eyed peckers 

Regrown in the guts of grasping gods 

Where's the maimed garment of fate? 

Now torn apart by the gold-plated teeth

Blood-drenched by sanguinary wands

These pecked-holes have become eyes 

Eyes weary; crying of their ripped barks 

This is the song of children in the wood;

of trees that never bear forbidden fruits 

but chopped off before the day springs 

Left like a weed in a forsaken farmhouse  

'Morrow, we will grow into a thorny grass 

For you to march upon the larch you laid 

©® Jamiu Ahmed