Another Reluctance

By Annie Finch b. 1956 Annie Finch

Chestnuts fell in the charred season,

Fell finally, finding room

In air to open their old cases

So they gleam out from the gold leaves,

In the dusk now, where they dropped down.

I go watch them, waiting for winter,

Their husks open and holding on.

Those rusted rims are rigid=hard

And cling clean to the clear brown,

And the fall sun sinks soon,

And the day draws to its dark end,

.and the feet give up the gray walk,

no longer lingering, light gone,

and I am here and do not go home.

Hollow gifts to cold children:

The chestnuts they hid in small caches

Have gone hollow, their gleam gone,

Their grain gone, and the children are home.

Biography

Annie Finch is the author or editor of fifteen books of poetry, translation, and criticism, including the trilogy of poetry collections Eve (1997), Calendars (2003), and Spells, and the long poems The Encyclopedia of Scotland (2002) and Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams (2009). Calendars was shortlisted for the Foreword Poetry Book of the Year Award, and Eve reissued in the Carnegie Mellon Classic . . .

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