Kolasch.com

The weeping willow doesn’t care
how it got its name—
wispy fingers of leaves as tendrils reaching to the ground
so the rain won’t fall.

The weeping willow isn’t weeping—
its bowing, hunching shoulders in a question
it will never ask.

The other trees wouldn’t listen—
with the slightest wind they never stop talking.

They shake the rain from them—
throwing droplets like tiny bombs
from tiny platforms to the tiny targets below—
ants and worms and crickets and bees
are casualties of a war they didn’t know existed—
could never know existed—

because the other trees won’t listen.
The weeping willow isn’t weeping—
it’s bowing, touching the ground to the rain—

to gently, gently—
gently river the sky so the ants
and worms and crickets and bees
never have to learn of a war
they didn’t know existed.

And the weeping willow waits—
it knows it will never ask its question
because the other trees don’t touch the ground.

So how could they know how it feels
to carry the sky to the earth and drink it.

JKolasch