It was a hard winter, and the cold had seeped deep into the wood of my cabin, the crisp air impossible to warm no matter how much I fed the fire in my stove. My body felt stiff, my bereavement palpable always, my muscles in need of coaxing every time I stood still for too long.
One day, a couple of sapsucker woodpeckers landed on my porch as I was sweeping it clean of crumbly leaves. The birds were small, the red of their crowns duller than it should be, and sparse.
“Don’t you look poorly,” I said. It had been a while since I’d last heard my voice, and it surprised me with its resonance, the dark notes of its depth.
“We are on our way south,” the birds replied, “but are too weak from hunger to fly that far.”
