woodpecker raze when you aren't busy making shallow holes for roosting or mimicking the rituals of courtship with bloodless violence designed to unnerve any would-be rival, you moonlight as an arboreal percussionist. you can pack fifteen strikes into a single second. the blade of your beak beats against bark, porous bone wrapped in keratin pounding out a rhythm that shakes your heated skull and demarcates your territory. i've known too many drummers to put my trust in you. but let me admire your sense of syncopation, and let me fashion some facsimile of your plumage out of sound and supposition. 220507 what's it to you? who go blather from