A man walks through damp leaves, eyes on the ground, and picks up a walnut shell. Its wrinkled surface starts to look like a carved figure of a woman in a kimono with her back turned. When he flips it over, he finds her face inside, with black eyes and a pin through her hair. He waits for her to say something, to point him somewhere, but he hears only emptiness and an unplaceable rustling in the wind.
The face then turns into a scalloped ear, as if the shell is waiting for him to speak. He can't. Neither of them has anything to say, and the speaker admits he is "ever at a loss." So he tosses the walnut away, and a woodpecker carries it off.
The mood is quiet, wry, and a little lonely. The speaker longs for guidance but finds only his own silence reflected back. His final caution about picking up another nut feels both funny and sad.