Between Jobs
by Rose Marie Berger

The woods along Rock Creek
are a wall of chartreuse green

shot through with redbud seams;
white dogwood blossoms stacked

in crystalline piles. In the middle,
a woodpecker.

Top-notch ablaze, back in black,
red-streaked along the cheek,

blue-beaked and pecking,
dadada dadada dadada – then flight

rending the woods,
ascreech in delight.

Rose Marie Berger, an associate editor at Sojourners, blogs at www.rosemarieberger.com. She’s the author of the forthcoming book Who Killed Donte Manning?: The Story of an American Neighborhood (Apprentice House,  April 2010).