Coming to a Head, Coming to a Wall

John MacNeill Miller

Boring is a word for the woods. Boring
is not allowed in the house, hammering
into lintels or siding or the stucco some
bygone workman slathered just beneath
the frieze board. 
  We hate the idea of this place
being breakable, our shelter coming undone:
this development (like all developments)
unfolding, upended over time. Never-
theless there it is, the chiseled hole 
in our promising façade, the new-
bored emptiness now aflutter
with a wild red stare. 
          Spring wakes us
too early now. There is a drumming
like impatient fingers along
chimney tops. Our gutters
respond. Each opening
spills out the dying
breath of winter,
exhales a long
suburban
yawn.

The Science

This poem is part of a series dedicated to revisiting and reimagining scientific accounts of common backyard birds in the Eastern United States. The poem centres on the red-bellied woodpecker, Melanerpes carolinus, and incorporates well-established features of the bird's anatomy, physiology, and behaviour: their red crowns, napes, and irises; their boring of nest cavities in the sides of trees (and houses); and their territorial drumming on branches (and gutters and chimney caps). But along the way I try to enrich such scientific accounts by also understanding these features on a symbolic level, considering how human frustrations with these sometimes annoying or destructive birds might tell us something about how our buildings and developments are changing the world - and how we need to change as well to coexist peacefully with wild creatures.

The Poet

John MacNeill Miller (he/him) writes and teaches about the intersections between literature, animals, and the environment outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States. He is the author of The Ecological Plot: How Stories Gave Rise to Science (University of Virginia Press, 2024). His creative writing has appeared at The Hopper, The Shore, and Flyway, among other venues.

Next poem: Dust to Moondust by Mitch Browne