The acorns

dropping onto cars

sound like popcorn

in the microwave.

Catkins carpet the ground.

Tree roots

snap the sidewalk slabs in two.

 

But what I want to talk about is

why you attacked me

before my first bite of breakfast

about the political mess,

as if any of it is my fault,

as if all of it is–

the hourly shifts of fortune,

the desperation,

the partisans clinched

like spent boxers.

 

There is all that. Yes.

And there is the slow work of the oak.