Going through life as a relatively shy woodpecker
(my wings are tipped black and my head is red),
expecting every peck to be a beetle-flusher.
There are no tasty bugs in this forest sector,
but I still clutch a limb and bob my head,
going through life as a relatively shy woodpecker.
Too bashful to be a nest-wrecker
(I’m quite discrete),
but I still expect every peck to be a beetle-fetcher—
wanting to be a hummingbird sipping nectar
from a flowerpuff named Buttercup,
instead of going through life (as I do) as a relatively shy woodpecker.
But it's too daunting to be a bold flycatcher—
I’ll be a brown thrasher (or a darkling thrush) instead—
but when I finally peck my beetle-gusher
I’ll be swinging on Polaris in the Little Dipper
just when I’d given myself up for dead.
Going through life as a relatively shy woodpecker,
expecting my last peck to be a walk-off homer.
