Oak Apples
Forest shell, what do I hear when I lift you to my ear? The hum of stinging things? Or the great low thrum of an oak's heartbeat?
Hollow potato, sheeny
tumor, an August surprise
so Faberge-precious I could crack
it between my palms
as I have done a thousand times
since a child, each time imagining
something wriggling and bald
instead of browned lace
and cobwebs.
Forest shell, what do I hear
when I lift you to my ear?
The hum of stinging things?
Or the great low thrum
of an oak's heartbeat?
Basso profundo slow-down
until a year becomes a day,
a century a season.
Some galls are used for ink;
you carry an echo.
*Oak apples or oak galls are "rounded growths that are filled with a spongy mass" where gall wasp larvae mature. Over time, the gall dries "to a brown, paper thin wall..." and the wasp escapes. "While large and spectacular, they cause no measurable harm."--University of Kentucky Department of Entomology
