-This poem reflects on squirrels gathering walnuts in early autumn, where stained paws, a hidden cache, and split green husks reveal the season’s work continuing beneath the trees.
The walnut leaves lie broad and gold,
in drifts beneath the garden wall,
where two gray squirrels nose the ground
for nuts the higher branches dropped.
One grips a walnut in its paws
and tears the green husk with its teeth,
then sits upright beneath the tree,
its forepaws dark with walnut stain.
The other carries one beyond
the rain barrel and row of beans,
then digs beside the lilac roots
and presses leaves across the hole.
By dusk, they climb the rough-barked trunk
and disappear among the limbs;
below, two halves of walnut husk
rock once, then settle in the leaves.