November 3, 2013

walnut trees growing
in Germantown, PA
as I walked beneath
their leafy boughs
another time & space

I knew how it felt
to touch their
rough tree bark &
believed I could climb
upon a branch &
share with singing lark

for she brought them
into her kitchen
to share in baking song
& made them part & parcel
to bring us all along

her memory of growing up
as she walked
beneath their shade
baking smells embracing
in Germantown, PA

My grandmother was raised in Germantown, PA and came to live on the West Coast as a teenager. Walnut trees grow in abundance there and so using them in baking became part of her tradition. There was rarely anything that did not have them in it and her coffee table always had a variety of nuts in the shell to wait for someone to crack them open.