Its where my head is at
Deep autumnal nutty mellow greetings
to you,
from the river. It is fall here, officially,
but a warm fall. I wonder
how much too warm,
it is.
How too like summer, too unlike
the precursor to winter
it is.
How much the color, the pattern
the slither of the snake of fall
has changed
since even last year.
Its where my head is at.
We have been collecting these
wonderful,
bulbous
errantly bright green
shagbark hickory nuts.
In order to slowly,
meticulously make a single
large zucchini and hickory nut loaf.
To eat, perhaps with butter. Perhaps
I will even place the butter
in the oven
for hours
and make a perfect
golden ghee,
instead. And only then
slather the toasty brown slice
in fat.
The nuts are very labor intensive to extract, but light,
sweet and nutty—
they remind me of maple, and also pistachios, but not as herbal.
Plus, pistachios are always cuddling up
to some exotic mint or savory fruit vinegar.
Such is their nature, their indigeneity.
It is interesting to put so much effort into something.
Nuts are supermarket abundant,
even the coops have them in plenty,
and you can buy them shelled and perfectly salted.
California's aquifers deliver.
The export market is crucial.
But these nuts,
drank only
ever increasing
Vermont rain.
It is a mast year. Acorns rain down from oaks, the sound just like
a sudden summer storm
coming down quick
making us laugh in surprise
at how fast we are
completely wet.
The green shagbark hickory nuts lay
in Dionysian piles
on rock walls in the woods.
Next year will be a mast year
for chipmunks.
And then,
boom and bust,
they will die by the hundreds.
So what does it mean to do this collecting,
this waiting for the husk to dry, this finicky picking at the hull
to get at the sweet,
sparse meat?
Treating it like a normal thing to do
slowly, and with little external
reward.
It is necessary.
Its where my head is at.
The shagbark hickory nut shells did produce
a beautiful Van Dyke-like
brown ink
that I will be using
on the next interpretation
of your words.
