It was the end
of the bag of Texas pecans
I got for Christmas from my old friend
that started me thinking.
Texas pecans outweigh New England pecans by twice,
more meaty even than walnuts . . .
My Mother
instructed me in our car parked outside the Post Office
on the square of our little town <the largest square,
she said They said, after Red Square in Moscow>
as we watched an old couple caning the pecan trees,
that it was a law, a deed-restriction, that
the harvesting of pecans on the county courthouse grounds
was free and unrestricted . . .
those canes
long sturdy, varnished poles, had multiple uses,
not the least, for fishing
for in Texas, then,
no fishing license was required to use a cane pole,
and in Spring, in spawning season, bank-fishing
was better even than from a jon-boat.