Going going

For Aesculus hippocastanum

After five hundred years it comes to this:

branches lit like candelabras;

tongues of fire yet no language for pain.

No way to tell their young this might be it –

know if these none-ers will conquer,

shield the little urchins from their fall.

Maybe they’ll go the way of white dog shit,

of Readers’ Wives, stuffed in bushes;

of coalmen, twin tubs, saving for things.