Live Encounters Poetry & Writing, Special Edition on Humour June 2024.
Acorn, poem by Ross Donlon.
Acorn
The backyard was littered with bullet snubs of acorns
fired by an upstairs parent, the tree we called an ‘acorn’.
Innocent inner city renters, no biology know-how
breached the backyard mystery of the exotic acorn.
And it was young then, slouched against the fence,
an adolescent clicking for attention. See me, A.Corn.
But softer, its cup shaped cupule of indurated bracts
were sweet gum nut babies in a nursery acorn.
Wars still thrived in the backyard since war fared
everywhere. Amo was a cache of ammunition acorn.
In time, of course, it became a sailing ship, just once
a mountain, prone to avalanche with falling acorns.
But it’s as ship full sail, breasting a howling Southerly,
best remembered, cockpit sheering clouds of acorns.
Branches bent to the wind, veering over the neighbours
into Eternity. I hung on howling in the thrash of acorns.
The oak it was eventually, never stayed true to memory.
Oaks are another story. In Sherwood. Ours was an Acorn.
© Ross Donlon
Ross Donlon has published five books of poetry, the latest being The Bread Horse. He is represented in numerous anthologies both in Australia and the U.K.