In a nutshell
An empty half-walnut shell lay upturned on the verandah. The wren fluttered down & poked at it with his bill, hopping all around it in his big clown feet.
The black walnut half had two large openings like holes in a round kayak. The wren probed one & then the other, leaving nothing to chance.
It was time for tea on the verandah, but nobody came. The wren flew off. The walnut shell rocked a few times & was still, riding high without ballast through the long afternoon.
The wren here is the Carolina wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus). The poem came out of direct observation, but was also influenced by the poem “The Hollow Walnut,” by the great Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral (translated by Maria Giachetti in Gabriela Mistral: A Reader, White Pine Press, 1993). Black walnut (Juglans nigra) produces much harder nuts than the familiar white or English walnut. Its nutmeat is also much tangier – an acquired taste.