“Black Walnuts”

Black walnuts hitting a barn roof

Fairly rapped the morning.

          Massachusetts,

Autumn. Orioles and pumpkins.

And the crack of those round shells

Like a hardwood mallet hammering a wedge

Into the moment, splitting it ever open

Up ahead, letting it travel with us,

Us into it, articulated

Ongoing: whatever was to happen next

Anticipated as half-consciously

As the smack of the next mailed walnut

On the roof, but at exactly what

Interval none of us could tell.

— Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

This is drawn from “ The Poems of Seamus Heaney .”