Let me tell you an ancient story
Of a traveller
Lean and hungry
Walking with a cane
Who came upon a house
Warm and inviting
And through a kitchen window pane
Spied a woman
Baking cakes
He knocked upon the door
And asked her for a slice
In response the woman shouted
"Go away!"
She wasn't very nice
But unbeknownst to her
The traveller was no ordinary man
A member of a long forgotten clan
First he hit her with his cane
Watched the blood run down her face
Oblivious to her pain
Called her greedy
For ignoring the weak and needy
Cast a spell with just one word
And she became a strange new bird
That flew away
Perhaps to find her Mecca
The blood red crested
Woodpecker
We native Americans love the sound
Of the woodpecker
Drum, drum drumming
Like the beat of Nature's heart
Lub dub lub dub lub dub dubbing
Symbolic of the great life force
In elemental rhythm
That binds us to this sacred earth
Behold Thor, the God of Thunder
Behold Mars, the God of War
With both the bird associated
The sound of thunder
The sound of war
The sound of beaks on wood peck pecking
So ask the woodpecker what it's doing
When it's pecking wood
Hunting insects for food
Is what it'd say
If it could
Yet we might look beyond this simple truth
In search of something metaphysical
Intelligence
It knows they're there
Persistence
Until enough's enough
So when you see one in your garden
Doing what it's born to do
Allow a moment of your time
Embrace it's motion so sublime
And if you can get near enough
Listen to it rat tat tatting
Mar 22
Mar 22, 2026 at 3:01 AM UTC
Let me tell you an ancient story
Of a traveller
Lean and hungry
Walking with a cane
Who came upon a house
Warm and inviting
And through a kitchen window pane
Spied a woman
Baking cakes
He knocked upon the door
And asked her for a slice
In response the woman shouted
"Go away!"
She wasn't very nice
But unbeknownst to her
The traveller was no ordinary man
A member of a long forgotten clan
First he hit her with his cane
Watched the blood run down her face
Oblivious to her pain
Called her greedy
For ignoring the weak and needy
Cast a spell with just one word
And she became a strange new bird
That flew away
Perhaps to find her Mecca
The blood red crested
Woodpecker
We native Americans love the sound
Of the woodpecker
Drum, drum drumming
Like the beat of Nature's heart
Lub dub lub dub lub dub dubbing
Symbolic of the great life force
In elemental rhythm
That binds us to this sacred earth
Behold Thor, the God of Thunder
Behold Mars, the God of War
With both the bird associated
The sound of thunder
The sound of war
The sound of beaks on wood peck pecking
So ask the woodpecker what it's doing
When it's pecking wood
Hunting insects for food
Is what it'd say
If it could
Yet we might look beyond this simple truth
In search of something metaphysical
Intelligence
It knows they're there
Persistence
Until enough's enough
So when you see one in your garden
Doing what it's born to do
Allow a moment of your time
Embrace it's motion so sublime
And if you can get near enough
Listen to it rat tat tatting
