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Willow
by sam Friday, Jun 6 2014, 11:52am
international / poetry / post

i once asked,
with all the innocence
of a child,
“why do willows weep?”
the answer, as most answers
to my serious questions,
was wholly unsatisfactory
but
i was not deterred

the lake, pond and billabong
host my favourite tree;
as i developed i attributed
its weeping to the cruel manner
in which humans treat
each other and the world
around them

willows where everywhere
reminding man, i thought,
to be kind to the earth
especially the waterways
which thronged with life
in those days.

during my enforced service
in Vietnam
it became obvious
that willows weep
over the futility of war

but i returned
and considered it anew
and realised that perhaps
willows do not weep at all
they simply mimmick water,
it seemed as though nature
expressed water in a tree
hence that great sympathy
which bonds tree to water
forever

this new view revealed another
dimension, willows now ‘draped’
the banks of waterways
and waltzed in the breeze,
they belonged, they had a place
a highly selective location
in which to express their unique
relationship with water, air and earth

in later years
i realised that harmony
ruled
-- with a gentle hand --
all things natural
and that man was
the aberrant species,
an incongruity
in creation --
such appalling
conduct and habits

i lamented man’s opposition
to harmony
to everlasting

today i see
willows in all their various guises
water expressed as tree
tree expressed as dance
and dance mimicking harmony

i see at times,
in their graceful swaying,
that indeed
willows weep silently
for me

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