ACORNS

Buckets of acorns sit at the base of old giant oaks,

Annual collections quantifiably rich and deep,

I dip into them with my hands,

Let the green droplets and their brown caps

Sift through my fingers like gold coins,

Dump them into pig feeders and

Watch the rooting snouts feast on bitter seeds

While I stand outside of the fence,

Where walnuts and hickory nuts scatter at my feet,

Fewer in number, cloaked in tough skins and thick shells,

I break them with a hammer to dig out their meat

To feed myself.

Squirrels hoard what they can carry.

Bound to seasonal tides, we share ritual meals,

Leave behind enough to reseed and grow,

Wait out the lean months,

Then gather together for another harvest moon

Beneath the oak, walnut, and hickory trees. 

© cmheuer, September, 2016  

INVECTIVES

Untended, poison oak injures

Wild flowers and running cedar,

Usurps water and nutrients, spreads voraciously;

Untended, poison ivy climbs onto walnut branches,

Embeds root tentacles in rough bark

To support the three-leaved vertical climb,

Tendrils wrap around thin twigs,

Secure surreptitious ascents,

Take sun away from the old tree’s pinnate leaves.

They both breed in the worst of soils,

Where their early spring pioneers multiplied

Like words spilled from viper spit,

Angry earworms—repeated

In refrains, themes, and musical phrases.

Untended, diatribes spread across

Language maps, like ancient wandering clans,

Seeds slung back and forth upon a heavy wind,

To settle in the midst of poetic groves,

To swarm in library hives and overwrite the books

With brazen, meaty, buzz words

Replicate in all soils and create a rash of

Intemperate sounds.

© cmheuer