I wrote this poem about six years ago for a National Poetry Day assembly at Repton Prep, where my wife, Sarah, was Head of English. It was designed to show an audience of 7-13 year old pupils how they might construct a poem, or rather, how I constructed a poem, from observation, memory, comparison and diction, matching words to ideas and feelings, some of which owe a debt to Seamus Heaney's 'Blackberry Picking'.

Conkers

Amongst September’s litmus leaves,

The long, green fuse of summer

Burns out in the branches

Detonating green grenades,

Exploding, showering earthwards.

Bobbing mines in dew-fall grass

Split in varnished grins.

Some we’d crack and prise

Hard jewels from calfskin purses,

Popped knots of chestnut grain,

To cram in every pocket gape.

Running home, the nugget spill,

Vinegar spells and oven smells,

To harden into battle balls

For playground champs and scalping glee

Of swings and strings and broken globes

               *             *             *

Within a week, the gloss had gone,

Crushed, the lustre of the loot

And we too young and hasty-blind

To beauty trodden underfoot