I guess
\na Walnut Tree’s been growing
\nnear my house.<\/p>\n
I found this big green nut, out on the lawn.
\nWhere from?
\nMy trees are ever green, I thought.
\nA squirrel?<\/p>\n
I went and looked.
\nAnd there it was.
\nIt must have sprouted up
\nSometime
\nOver the last few years, I guess,
\nWhile I was doing something else.<\/p>\n
I showed the green nut
\nto my son,
\nAnd
\nHe said,
\n“What’s inside?”<\/p>\n
I thought back to the
\nvery first time
\nI saw one.
\n“What’s inside?”
\nI said.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n
My Aunt
\nhad walnuts
\non her lawn.<\/p>\n
A menace to the grass (I do recall her saying, more than once)
\nBut wonderful
\nSo wonderful,
\nTo sit (or play) beneath.
\nOn summer days,
\nWhen we were young.<\/p>\n
“It’s magic,” she would say.
\nAnd crack it open,
\nTo reveal,
\nA darker,
\nSmoother,
\nNut.<\/p>\n
Brown, richly swirling woody coloured Nut.<\/p>\n
She’d rub it with her hands,
\nHer gardener’s hands,
\nWith fingers bent,
\nAnd knuckles calloused.
\nPointing with her index finger
\nJust the way she always did.<\/p>\n
We’d talk of how a seed,
\nA nut, or tiny flower seed
\nKnew all
\nIt had to know
\nTo make another self.<\/p>\n
(Would that our learning stayed genetic
\nLike that seed!
\nInstead,
\nOur youth
\nGet Schooled.)<\/p>\n
“A game,” she said,
\n“We used to play.”<\/p>\n
“You see, you take a nail,
\nA string, and poke it through
\nAnd smash yours on another’s,
\n’til one breaks\u2026”
\nA battle game,
\nFrom childhood,
\nShe would play with brothers, sisters, and my mom.<\/p>\n
“OH NO” I’d said.
\n“We learned at school,
\nTHAT’S JUST NOT SAFE!”
\nJust like those clackers,
\nmade of glass.
\nThey shatter.
\nMind your eyes!<\/p>\n
I never played the nut game.<\/p>\n
Still, the nut was magic.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022\u2022<\/p>\n
And so,
\ntoday,
\nI found the green nut
\nOn the counter.
\n(Cleaning,
\nYet again,
\nThe kitchen.)<\/p>\n
I heard my son’s voice,
\n(in my mind this time)
\nasking me,
\nagain,
\n“So, what’s inside?”<\/p>\n
Our conversation,
\ninterrupted,
\njust the other day,
\nWhile I was doing something else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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