Raw Nature

The prolonged, startling-shrill cry of a
pileated woodpecker percolates through
the early morning twilight of the forest
awakening to another summer day.
The bird, its primal head and beak
tasking a dying beech is in its
native element, shattering the trunk
in glaring splinters betraying the
power of its size and relentless
hammering. It has no specific agenda
to hasten the tree's expiry date
but it will. This dense, green landscape
is its kingdom, nature programmed
its remote ancestors to the same
tireless and timeless blueprint and
none in the forest can challenge its
reigning entitlement as the
chief curator of the forest's biome
standing in regimented display for its
inspection dutifully carried out in
obeisance to its custodianship, seeking
out burrowing insects and their progeny,
tidying up the forest as one whose agency
is the arrest and detention of insect
pestilence preying on the forest, while
itself destroying their havens, one 
relentless predator recognizing the
other; the odd harmony of raw nature.