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Willow Views |
Once I noticed the moon dance an entire
row of rustling willows awake after a total eclipse.
In the psalm Israelite poets hung their harps
on Babylonian willows and wept for Zion.
A grail knight left his maiden beneath a willow, never
to return. Forever all willows shed tears for her.
You can observe a broken willow twig
fall to earth and send out new roots.
Tenacious roots crave underground brooks, find
tiny cracks in drain pipes and strangle them shut.
The dowser takes his Y-shaped stick, stem-to-sky, hands
clutching forks, palms up, and steps forward.
Their bark, medicine to Hippocrates, rediscovered
by Bayer, became our headache and heart disease remedy.
Look how a line of willows along a river picks up
colors of the day, breathes with the wind.
copyright 2009
Martin
Dickinson |
