The oaks have
dropped more acorns
this year than anyone
can remember. It’s
like walking on ball
bearings, except
sometimes they pop:
a cap comes off
& one blank face
gains a split. It
must be lonely
having the only
mouth. Do you take
a breath? Do you
invent eating?
Do you look for
another broken soul
& improvise some
kind of minimal
kiss? But wait
a while: soon
everyone will awake
& turn & stick
a yellow tongue
into the earth.
*
The podcast will be a little late this week. I wrote the poem two days ago in response to some video footage, but decided they didn’t really go together, and it could stand on its own. But I’d already made an audio recording, so I figured I could at least include that and maybe placate those impatient for the Woodrat Podcast. I think this is a pretty good fit with the Bridge to Nowhere series.
Oh. This is wonderful.
Glad you liked it!
Wow. I love this one, Dave. Those yellow tongues.
Thanks, Beth.
Yes, wonderful.
We have an unusual amount of acorns dropping this year too. That ball bearings line is a nice description of that feeling of walking on them.
Wow, even down in Texas? I wonder why?
One blank face gains a split. That’s wonderful. I love this. I like the ball bearings allusion too.
Thanks, glad that worked for you. I think I kind of stole the split-in-a-blank-face idea from the Daoist classic Zhangzi.
Like this long tactile tongue of a poem.
Thanks. I don’t usually go quite so heavy on the enjambment but it seemed to work here. Hadn’t thought of the poem itself as a tongue, but good point.
You surpass yourself my friend. And moreover, in the future I won’t be able to tread on a fallen acorn without summoning your imagery. The squirrels here have an ambition to transform our croquet lawn into an oak woodland, and love trees though I do, I’m forever trying to thwart them. Tiny oak saplings spring up overnight, even though the parent trees themselves are a field away. It’ll only be a matter of time before they succeed. When we are gone and someone less vigilant gardens here, perhaps the squirrels shall have their way. I like that notion. Not ‘The Man Who Planted Trees’, but ‘The Squirrel Who Never Gave Up’!
You’re telling me you prefer playing croquet to watching a forest grow?! Maybe you could improvise a new game involving acorns.
I’m very bad at croquet, I get thrashed by eight year olds! I think the squirrels know that and therefore imagine me to be a pushover regarding their plans to turn our garden into a wood!
Heh. Actually, I love the game, and always figured it was a good thing I never tried golf — probably would’ve become a total duffer.