The Vampires & the Woodpecker

_____If you look across the marsh,

the tall, reed like, grasses

give the wetlands

the appearance of a plain,

as one might find in Africa

_____or the American Midwest.

_____But, only at low tide,

when the water recedes,

leaving beds of oysters

_____exposed, and thirsting.

_

_____With the close of

the North Florida winter,

come spring swarms;

blood sucking squadrons,

no longer sleeping soundly,

_____through the colder season.

_

_____But, working diligently

in an overturned tree;

the woodpecker,

warbling, as he hops

_____from branch to bouncing branch.

_

_____His apparent goal:

The hunting of

the hematophagous horde

of itchy interlopers,

haunting the home

_____of my grandmother.

_____That - or painstakingly picking away

the, practically endless,

supply of protein

pouring from every

pool and puddle

_____of this perplexing plain.