maple walnut
ranks top as most divine
~ dreamy texture
AP: 2nd place 2026, Honorable Mention 2026
Sit down. That is to say, have a seat.
On oatcakes, where such treats bide,
knowing not, they'll soon be inside.
When a walnut and banana meet,
that is the time for us to eat.
I put on my shoes and socks
and gazed at my walnut music box,
and remembered a nut I tried to crack,
all day long, before I hit the sack.
I had tried to open it, but it stayed shut,
So, I said, "You really are a nut".
Of course, it's nuts just like these,
that you find growing on walnut trees.
Wouldn't it be funny if that little guy
grew into a walnut tree to the sky,
and a clockmaker in the neighborhood,
made a music box from its walnut wood?
I went to bed and thought some more,
but before I could begin to snore,
My music box began to play
"The Unquiet Grave", as dead I lay.
Like all my siblings, I dropped from my mother's crown, oh, about twenty years ago now
Fortunately, though a tough nut to crack, I eventually poked my green head up out of the ground
Turns out that I'm a tree, an Eastern Black Walnut to be exact, or Juglans nigra to be super exact
Now, nearly thirty feet tall, I can feel I've slowed down in growth some, normal for us black walnuts
If I keep my roots, and that pesky walnut caterpillar doesn't find me, I should double my height
My leaves are busy factories turning sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into life sustaining oxygen
You humans love the pungent taste of my healthy fruit and use it in a slew of your culinary delights
They tell me studies show that the antioxidants I host are beneficial for human medicinal purposes
That chocolate wood I lumber around is top notch for constructing beautiful, long lasting furniture
So whatever our destiny may be, dresser, medicine, or tree, us black walnuts will always stand tall
When, once, a peanut and a walnut met,
as covered by the Iowa Gazette,
the question good folks asked was whether
these two nuts could go together.
As a kitchen cook, I must insist -
these two nuts can co-exist.
1950’s walnut what-knot-shelf
small compartments with tiny doodads
crystal doohickeys and miniature thimbles
variety of teensy ceramic trinkets
displayed in woman’s living room
every mother I knew had one back in the day
1950’s go-to accessory for the modern woman
walnut tree was now slightly blemished
deer had done lots of damage
getting his antlers off
tree did not mind
felt like a willing partner
available every year
he smiled as white tail flew into thicket
Native American symbol practicing wisdom as it lives and grows in life
Black Walnuts roll over a high edge,
the tree is too close to a sea cliff.
Walnuts dash themselves upon rocks,
only one lands on a surfing wave.
It has not been bitten,
by tunneling insects
and so it remains watertight.
On a far beach it is washed up.
A boy finds it,
he is not sure if he wants to keep it
yet he shoves it into his pants pockets.
Walking home across open fields,
he decides it’s just a rotten nut,
and throws it away.
A walnut tree will grow
where the nut landed.
This is how the planet grows -
the cast-off and done with,
are essential parts of a plan,
masquerading as an accident.
Nobody here is an accident.
. for public domain
Fourth and Walnut, so fine, so chic,
what a place for God to speak,
or for that matter, Satan too.
Both would like a word or two.
So Merton opened up his soul,
as if standing on a knoll
in his Kentucky, US of A,
offered up his heart that day.
God's Love came pouring like a stream,
drowning Satan's evil scheme,
and Merton went out with the tide,
to choose the better life inside.
recalcitrant nut
will not yield its hidden heart
resists invasion
patience gone where is hammer?
walnut obliterated.
" N" Poems
Nutty
Poetry Contest
Sponsored
by
Constance La France
20/09/2021
The old walnut tree in the meadow weep
Time had arrived her strains in sorrow steep
Echoes of a nameless and powerful storm break in
I feel shivers on my bare skin
I would like to touch and hug it, before it dies
The roots of the tree pointing up towards the skies
In the backyard of mourning, distant in all its splendor
Never a new spring, feel its shaking so tender
05/09/2019
Sun :) - A-L Andresen :)
Copyright © All Rights Reserved
Writing Challenge 1, September 2019
- Eight Line Form - Poetry Contest -
Sponsored by: Dear Heart - Wiishkobi Ode
4th place in the contest
Like a lost firefly my mind strays
Concealed like a ripe walnut
My heart is shelled by enclosure
Waiting to be cracked open...
To be served on platinum trays
For whom ever needs some exposure
My donation of hope and faith...
Or perhaps you need just a little love
If you need some, it's yours to take...to pull
You may take as much as you need
I am serving plenty for all
Widen your fingers, grab a handful
My friend, what is mine is yours
My world just wouldn't be the same any other way
After all, is life really life...without love
Sharing and caring for one and for all
I'll be cracking open walnuts...
Until I'm way high...up above
Tri-Con Poetry Contes
Sponsored by Emile Pinet
7-16-2019
There’s not a sound
In the woods
But for the lone, heavy
Thump
Of a walnut
Shed
From its tree
To the ground,
Re-affirming
That the Earth
Is not hollow.
I’m startled by the thud, so thick, so full
It could be a bull
Stomping its hoof into a dry field,
But, the Earthy wallop reveals
An abundance
From underneath,
A community of roots
Braid together like the synapse connections
Of a human brain,
So that the forest of trees
Breathes as one
From the soil,
That’s alive, thinking, blinking
With a 100 million
Microbe languages
Chirping
Through its heavenly rot
From God,
A summon to a muddy galaxy,
To a billion year old feast
Where man and tree
Were first split from the same, single seed
From Eden,
The trees
Eating the sunlight
And making the air fresh
Like miracle machines
Chasing, in divine migration,
The retreat of the butterfly glaciers
From Man,
The fauna of new love,
The discovery of,
A little poem
And its feelings swiped from a scroll of paper;
It says,
The world is not a place with trees.
Indeed, the trees are the world.
When a walnut
Falls,
The universe remembers,
And shakes.
walnut tree in fruit
best pickled green eat with cheese-
carved Chinese treasure
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