Spring by Mary Oliver

All day the flicker has anticipated the lust of the season, by shouting. He scouts up tree after tree and at a certain place begins to cry out. My, in his black-freckled vest, bay body with red trim and sudden chrome underwings, he is dapper. Of course somebody listening nearby hears him; she answers with a sound like hysterical laughter, and rushes out into the field where he is poised on an old phone pole, his head swinging, his wings opening and shutting in a kind of butterfly stroke. She can't resist; they touch; they flutter. How lightly, altogether, they accept the great task, of carrying life forward! In the crown of an oak they choose a small tree-cave which they enter with sudden quietness and modesty. And, for a while, the wind that can be a knife or a hammer, subsides. They listen to the thrushes. The sky is blue, or the rain falls with its spills of pearl. Around their wreath of darkness the leaves of the world unfurl.

— Devotions by Mary Oliver (Page 201)