Poetic Journal Year 166 B.E.

166.40 Horse chestnuts

Horse chestnuts

         for those of us without children

What flowers red or pink or white hide beneath these tight soft tips
where five-fingered fronds unfurl from sticky buds this spring.
Come summer whose nuts will hang, encased sea urchins,
when dropped are gathered, planted by grey squirrels.
On a shadowed branch where bare of fruit I go unnoticed by them all,
my leaf, that nourishes this chestnut, 's precious till this autumn's fall.

© 2009 Kåre Enga [166.40] 2009-04-21