every day
the black squirrels raid Heaven.
I find leaf clusters
like fallen angels
everywhere.
they want
the hard nuts growing high
in the tree I tend
with loving care
these twenty odd years.
each time
they find their desire,
the Icarus clusters fall.
my tree expands, produces,
then incrementally loses
all summer long.
I learn
from watching all this
a new behavior
a new ache.
will you bury me as well one day, squirrels
or float me old green feathers
in kind aerial gesture?
_____
for Sherry's prompt at desperatepoets.
image of leaf cluster and walnut my own
I love "leaf clusters like fallen angels". How lovely to live with a tree for twenty years. And its creatures. There is an ache in me, too, reading your question to the squirrels. Close to home, for me.......Thanks so much for writing to and linking at my prompt. I love the way you write so much. One of your biggest fans.
ReplyDeleteI think you are probably my biggest fan, Sherry. I appreciate it.
DeleteAnd how amazing to have walnuts in your yard!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteThere are tons of them. It's a bombardment at times!
DeleteBlack walnuts. I grew up in the country with 5 acres of them around our house. My father collected the walnuts in the attic, and he made stain for the floors, wood in the house. did you know that nothing will grow under a black walnut tree? Or so I have been told. Loved your poem.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for your kind comment. Wish I knew who you are though.
DeleteYou know, I identified my tree as a black walnut, but the tree guy said it was an English walnut. I just don't know.
DeleteThat is an amazing poem. The squirrels raiding heaven is just too good. Then it gets better. "will you bury me as well one day" and a kind, aerial gesture is phenomenal.
ReplyDeleteThank you, qbit!
Delete"..the Icarus clusters.." I love that! And I know you love your walnut tree. Tending living things, even if it is only to clean up after them or prune them into shape, gives us a connection to reality, I think, and as in this poem, to our own mortality and what it might mean. Fine work with the metaphor here, and a beautiful, cogent and lucent poem, Shay.
ReplyDeleteHorticultural sidenote: English walnut is a tree that had to be planted by someone, one grown to produce nuts. The nuts are bigger and more profuse than our native black walnut, and I think the leaves are larger. I would say unless there is a river or creek near your house, it is probably the cultivated English walnut.
In fact, my tree WAS planted by a previous owner of the property. My neighbor, who has lived here since before my house was built, told me the lady who used to live here brought it up from some southern state and planted it in the yard.
DeleteThe oaks in my back yard have their own community and communion - shade and sway, haven for squrrels and owls - your poem of this presence is heart-root, the nourishment of however many more poems we are allowed. Amen.
ReplyDeleteThis is beautiful Shay and I especially love the last set of lines, the learning, the watching, a new ache. I actually had to have a tree taken down this week. It was the only big tree I had in the yard, but it's gigantic limbs were reeking havoc flying off in storms. It made me sad. I am going to plant a new one. Still trying to decide and study what would be good. Will have to wait till the fall to make it happen.
ReplyDeleteMy grandparents had an English Walnut in their yard ... once a week we churned homemade ice-cream ... often with the walnuts. Of course we had cherry, peach, strawberry and blackberry too. Love your squirrely poem.
ReplyDeleteLovely poem Shay...squirrels and trees, we have a cherry tree out back, the squirrels have taken up residence in a decaying off shoot!
ReplyDeleteOh, lovely! Is this true? It feels true somehow. Fun fact about squirrels: they so often forget where they've buried their nuts and this is how new oak trees are born! Awesome, right? :-D
ReplyDelete