The Nut Tree, Time

The nut tree had to have faith
so as to still its longing for order.
Ten years ago I set a bare root
into the earth, an austere stick,
three years later the first nuts,
puzzling fruit, supposedly
the likeness of our brains.
Everything is sacrificed to order:
childhood, youth, the garden, sorrow.
My brain alone has remained
as disordered as that unruly tree
that cut the ground from under the hazel.
But I needed its shade,
a place to rest and observe,
at the expense of truth, for all I cared.
The empty space is now home to misfortune,
...