Ponderosa Speaks to Woodpecker

Dedicated to Dr. David Mildrexler, systems ecologist at Eastern Oregon Legacy Lands, after attending his “Trees are Lovers” walk at Wallowa Lake Lodge as part of the 2024 Summer Fishtrap Gathering of Writers, July 8-14 (theme–love!), and with gratitude to Kim Stafford

Peel off a chip of my puzzle bark. Go ahead. Peck and chisel. Find every crevice in my amber trunk. I have known you, Downy Woodpecker, a hundred times over. My age cannot be measured by the 500 rings alone. I am river song. Whitecap on lake. Trickling headwaters. Lightning strike on high ridge bursting into flame.

I carry salmon deep in my heartwood. When full moon sweeps the faraway tides, my branches tremble with all that is ocean—deeper even than my taproot. Memory floods with chinook and steelhead spawning in Wallowa River, with black bears slapping great fish and padding under my shade to feast. The bones of salmon nourished in the Pacific 500 miles away fed me and fed my kin. So long gone. The time when the river ran red with wriggling fish coming home. So long gone, the two-legged ones who knew my language. We could talk then. I learned their name—Nimipuu—the people. They learned mine. They knew the way of drum, of chant, of kin, of family, of elder.

So many of my brethren so long gone. Felled by a sharp-toothed monster roaring, whining, cutting. Smash! I could not save them. So frantic. They called. Tapped distress root to root. I remember Bald Eagle nest crashing, three chicks spilling out shrieking. The crushing silence.

Yet still my sap flows. My cambium lives on, protected by layer upon layer of bark. And still, on a summer’s day, the scent of vanilla wafts from every fissure, where you,  Downy Woodpecker, might nab a striped beetle with a neat flick of tongue.

I have known fire so hot, I carry the charred black scar low where my trunk meets earth. I have known wind so strong, my top spire cracked and fell—only to grow a new one. I have known blizzard, ice, frost, and the softest touch of a hummingbird weaving a nest in a twig fork. But I have not ever known this relentless heat—the panting of Red Crossbill chicks, the suffering of all I carry.  Even you, Downy Woodpecker, must fluff your feathers not for warmth but for cooling.

We can outlive this. We can. I am strong, like the Nimiipuu come home again to speak to me in the language of trees. Give me your wings, your paws, and your beetle feet.

I will carry all of you.