"Like a Poet" by Brian Kates

A red-capped woodpecker jabs

his insistent beak into the birdfeeder outside

my kitchen window, taking what he needs

from what he finds, and what spills

to grass and weeds may sprout

in spring and bloom.

A longtime newspaperman, Brian Kates holds a Pulitzer Prize, George Polk Award, and Daniel Pearl Award for Investigative Reporting. His book, "The Murder of a Shopping Bag Lady," which chronicles the rise of American homelessness through the story of a homeless woman slain on the streets of New York, was a finalist for Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Allan Poe Award in non-fiction. Recent poetry has appeared in Third Wednesday, Common Ground Review, Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere. He lives with his wife in a house in the woods in the lower Hudson Valley.