Walking alone in nature, I shapeshift. Assuming the form of the oak, the rabbit, the flicker, the whale, the darkling beetle. On the trail ahead I hear the shuffle of another person’s footsteps coming toward me. I am rattled back into my human form. Did they see me, human me, as they approached? Or did I manifest out of the form of the acorn woodpecker? I had just been watching it tend to its acorn granary in the trunk of the black oak. I could use a bit of its diligent nature. I trip on a rock. A scrub jay flies past. I become light again.