Walking home through old Olson’s
abandoned cherry orchards,
I find the old way closed due to the new highway,
beer bottles and butts under those that offer fruit,
whatever was carved in the bark of these trees,
now obscured with hard red sap,

only a woodpecker
tapping the trunk of a black oak
that shelters me as I bend down
to pull a nail from my shoe.

Perched on the lip of a charred hollow
he hops inside,
Gone before I get there.
Maybe flying in the darkness,
following a river
that flows in all directions.
Maybe I’ll learn when to shut-up.
My name waiting to receive me.


Robert S. Pesich works as a staff scientist in the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University. His poetry has recently appeared in 2River View, The Bitter Oleander, Convergence and caesura among others. In 2005, he was awarded a poetry fellowship from Arts Council Silicon Valley and was a finalist for The Frances Locke Memorial Poetry Award. His chapbook, Burned Kilim was published by Dragonfly Press in 2001. He is currently finishing a book of poems tentatively titled Evaluation of Cost Factors in Design Practice. He lives in Sunnyvale with his wife and son.

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