The Brimming Wasteland

It’s early October, past dawn
And, without us looking,
Someone has cleansed the air.
Fallen leaves, scurry around after her,
Dancing to the unknown
Melody of the morning rays

The trees are showing off:
They fool us as we take in
The chill of winter to come.
Single yellow, brown, green, and red
Leaves fall and, though we don’t loiter
Long enough to see, all turn into soil.

Why is it after all these years
Conkers lying open to the sun, stir me?
Hundreds scattered liberally on the Downs
Unlike then, only a few trees then,
In Kent, when conker collection
Was an annual, serious pursuit

Then, glossy coats, their glory,
Fading to matt, yielded to skewers
And triple-knotted string.
“There’s five in my pocket today
One is a fourteen-er,
Battle-scared and doomed”

The trees watch and are content
Boys mostly, some girls,
Blind to the brimming wasteland,
Laden with odd green spiky capsules,
Thrown annually from a height, with hope:
The discarded life of each tree.

Distracted, fooled, and blind
They walk by these ancient life-spreaders
Who wait, God-like, patient yet hungry,
Like surfers searching for the wave,
For just one conker to die, out of sight,
And turn, not to soil, but leaf.

Then another…