Sightings: northern flicker

Once: pecking
on a flagstone
sidewalk. Once:
preening on
a telephone wire
and once: a day-
time meteor, or,
rather, meteorite,
crashing into
an astonished tree,
its orange flash
so quickly out
of sight, I stop
my car and scan
the flustered leaves
for his trademark
face-paint, polka-dot
breast, the thick,
black collar-necklace
that, in ancient
Egypt, would signify
divinity or caste.
No doubt, he’s
a beauty when
he’s still, but
the light—I found
a feather once:
an orange shaft
fringed by a black
oak leaf trimmed
in white—that
orange light
transfiguring
the air, that
only shines when
he’s in flight.

       —Jacqueline Osherow

This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 39 Number 10, on page 24
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