Please bear with me as I tinker with this online.
Pecan Year*
With staccato notes they strike,
rolling like billiards
down the shed’s freshly tarred roof.
Gathered together, their hulls clack softly—
A shy child’s blocks in a silver bowl.
Each ebony streak contains a universe,
each mottled shell a native land.
Like many pecan trees, ours only bears fruit every other year.
I loved that sound, especially in the morning when things were otherwise quiet. That tree hanging over the garage (draping it, it a way) was so mothering.
What most facinated me about them was the final landing, which I never heard, and how they fell faster when the wind picked up – almost like creating their own applause.
Wait! I almost forgot the best part! The unafraid squirrels who hid them all over the flower beds so the new pecan trees came up like suprise lilies. You could pull them out of the ground – tree, root, and pecan shell. All the stages complete like a some Fig. 1 drawing in an ancient science text.
I miss the pecans.