Acorns and the Summer Porch

acorns, old oak tree, shingles, porch, melt, foot

This morning it was raining acorns
because of the squirrels in the old oak tree.
The acorns rattled on the shingles,
rolled off, and piled up on the porch—
almost as real hail would, but acorns don’t melt.
They hurt when I crunch them with my foot,

stepping off the porch with my best foot
forward, toward the trunk of the old oak tree—
all the while hearing clattering on the shingles
and lamenting my languid summer porch
where I indolently lounged beneath green acorns—
warm thoughts making my heart melt.

I thought that the whole summer day would melt
into a cauldron with a satyr’s foot.
Everything was in the cauldron, starting with the acorns
falling down from the late-autumn oak tree,
making their constant drumming on the shingles—
nut accumulation on the porch.

How sadly I lament my summer porch
where I lay listening to my soul melt—
in love with you, my dear—brown foot
in the sun, scent of oak leaves and acorns
in my nose! How cloud-high rose the old oak tree
then, branches laden above the shingles,

laden with a weight of fruit the shingles
cannot hold—all rolling down to the porch,
where in another month snow won’t melt—
no un-treacherous step for the foot—
freezing robe of white covering the acorns
beneath shingled roof and bare oak tree!

How pathetically the old oak tree
itself laments, hulking over shingles,
opaque lap-sided walls and storied porch—
on which my tender lover’s heart would melt
of a summer's day, resting at the foot
of a venerable old oak engendering acorns.

I’ll have had enough of acorns when my foot
presses on the earth and feels it melt. But my summer porch
beckons—roof-shingles shaded by the old oak tree.