You could draw a straight line

between the branch and the ground,

and a circle around the silence,

with the nut in the middle

(after the flitting, before the thud

and thump).

Or could once have drawn,

for now the nut, uncapped, speaks no more.

It lies crushed in the soil

and the question it raised has pushed

the circle to the size of the world.

My own was the simple, Will it

hit my head? But its I missed.

I know it now as a silence too late.