The woodpecker drumming

The woodpecker
has been tapping on a nearby oak
since the daybreak.

Its persistent beating
a hollow branch, echoes the bareness
of autumn :

Am I simply a countable head in a crowd,
a leaf on a tree, or a branch,
empty inside?

Am I a poet scripting verses for the wind,
or am I similar to an archaic coin, tossed
to a pauper’s bowl, rattling along
throughout the season?

What about the faces I meet every day
in the marketplace, are their lives
marked by price tags?

I feel for the bird, which needs
to assert its identity

which keeps on drumming
at a roadside park
since dawn.