The girls ask the gardeners,
offering brooms under trees,
to bash the branches,
bring down a hail of nuts.
There are too many watching,
the yard is a busy place.
Better to ask such a favour
when no one's about.
Squirrels feast here at dawn.
Who knows how alerted
from grass and graveyards
over the high wall?
Ripe in August, hidden,
growing too high to reach,
walnuts in leaf- and grass-green,
firm, with a brown stain.
Somebody working outside,
with cloth bags hurries downwards,
words of excuses forming,
a nervous nod at the gate.
On quiet winter nights
in pubs at the foot of the hill
and in certain small houses,
walnut chutney on plates.
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem