musings on the simplicity of life
Some days I wish I were a walnut,
And thought my shell to be the extent of the world.
I’d know every crevasse, every wrinkle of my shell
With the grooves of my body, and be content at the snugness of my existence.
My biggest dream would be to land onto a sunny patch of grass.
My biggest foe would be a squirrel, starved and weary after the long winter.
Some days I wish I were a walnut. A simple walnut in a bitter green shell.
Maybe the farmer’s frugal wife finds me early in the spring.
Muttering: “Waste none..”
She would throw me in a copper pot to turn me into jam.
Maybe the farmer himself, flashing the silver blade, would pry out my tender flesh with the sharp tip of the pocket knife.
Doing so would remind him of his first spring in the mountains.
Of the morning when his father peeled a walnut, just like he did now, and fed him tender, sweet meat that smelled of waking earth.
Some days I wish I were a walnut.
Falling with a thud, rolling away from the tree, to a where a black bird can find me.
It would carry me away, past the farm and the forest, beyond the tree line, to where the mountain tops touch the sky.
It would place me next to the featherless hatchlings inside the weathered nest, made of twigs and rabbit fur.
The hatchlings would grow and tussle, pushing me out through the hole in the foundation of the nest.
Some days I wish I were a walnut, with only the purpose of becoming a tree.