Conkers

Conker, lying on the ground,
are you waiting to be found –
while you’re hard and shiny still –
by a little boy who will
hoard, delight in you, but may
bore a hole so he can play
“conqu’rors” – swinging on a string,
battered hard to see who’ll win –?
When your shine has gone, no longer
little children’s precious treasure.

So, –
Would you rather settle there,
on the damp earth to prepare;
germinating in the spring, –
if you’re not destroyed by then –?

If you grow for many years,
big and strong, a tree that bears
many leaves like hands outspread, –
out from sticky buds unfurled, –
big white candle-clustered flowers
dabbed with red, then later conkers
form from pollinated blossom,
prickly-cased to fall in autumn ….