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Twenty-First Century Willow

weeping willow with the sun shining through its leaves and a bench seat underneath
I have always been proud of my body:
lithe, supple, quite elastic. Watch me while I
bow to reach my delicately painted toenails.
I have always been supple.

My sturdy trunk withstands the wind which
gently stirs my slender limbs and sets me
swaying, tossed like the ocean’s waves,
rippling the fronds of my lime-green hair.

Don’t waste your pity on me. I have a reputation
for weeping but I am content with my lot.
I am not one of those weepy women
you love to despise. Snivelling, you call it.

I have always been flexible. Don’t let
that thought mislead you into imagining
that I am easily led. Supple, flexible,
I may be. Pliable, I am not.

If you are inclined to stay, we may indulge ourselves
in a little laziness. Rest a while beneath my boughs,
see how I catch the sunlight in my hair
and we will dip our toes together in the river’s flow.

I am a little moody, a touch melancholy
you might say, and inclined to droop.
There are times, I admit, when the river flows by
unheeding and I crave a little company.


Julia Duke

 

Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar via Unsplash

Poetry Theme(s):

Currently Popular Poems:

Ominous

Unexpected darkness descends With a decrepit desire for long absent affection, clutching at thin wispy ends with diminished thoughts and caged responses my deserted smile departed. Jill
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River Linnet

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Behind Your Smile

Behind your smile, Is a heart that's filled with pain, Behind every gesture There's a walk down memory lane. For yesterday's troubles, Are torments of the soul, It's so hard to be strong, When life takes its toll. With every step that's taken, There's compassion for another, A listening ear always there, Guiding sons, daughters, mothers. Always so much easier, To hold up for a friend, When to go with your feelings, Seems to lead to no end. The whispers locked inside your head, Remind you, you're alive, With pretending and avoiding, You can easily survive. Giving in's not an option, When there are others to care for, So easy to pretend, When there's no help at the door. Depression, like a broken leg , Needs nurturing and healing. Don't treat it any differently, It's normal to have feelings. Out there is the help you need, To help and cope and manage, The troubles burdening your mind, To unload all the baggage. So while right now it seems each ...
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Spreading Health

How much better it is to use a hanky or tissue than to propel germs, bacteria, viruses. How much better to keep that hanky up your sleeve then to wash it in 30 degrees or to compost that tissue for bugs and worms to consume making soil to grow food for health. Sue Foster Photo by Diana Polekhina via Unsplash  
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Torn Apart

Afterwards it was a long process, two years rolled into ten, of letting go, letting it out. She stumbled through days, drank warmed milk or camomile, paced all night. She worked; walked in the green; bathed in geranium and rose oil hot baths; and only talked to those friends who made her laugh. No sugar, no wine, went vegan, but tears, so much wetness like the churning of rainwater tumbling into a ravine frothing, drowning she fought for breath. She tried counting her blessings. She put on the lost smile, pretended. She made consciously positive statements about herself, about others. No-one knew. She went to happy places, spent time with good people. She allowed the tears, gushing taps, to drench at night kissing her lips with salt, with stinging, with coldness. Sometimes, now, even after all these years words needle her memory, but that is the stitching pulling, snagging. Soon there will only be a scar. No getting over it. Just a mend to staunch the bleeding. Sue Foster
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Tins

Back then, I couldn't understand. Why so many tins, mum? Towers of carrots, beans and soups. Spaghetti in tomato sauce. She was shaped by war and disability. Rations and depletions. Unreachable shops. The anxiety of uncertainty. Now I'm shaped by the virus war. Rations and depletions. Unsafe shops. The anxiety of uncertainty. I understand, now, and worry. Look at my own tin towers. Just ahead of the panic, Stores drying up, fear building. Ashamed of how I mocked. Unable to say sorry, To say that I understand. Complacent no more. by Adrian Image by Ti Wi via Unsplash
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Who Is Saving The World?

The recycler, bicycler, bio-masser and solar paneller, the sustainable developer, the charity worker, the medics (sans frontieres?), fundraisers and carers, givers and listeners, growers of organics, designers of biodegradables. Genetic engineers? Surgeons and researchers, forgivers and forgetters, Billy the bug hunter, Immy the mathematician, Troy the paratriathelete, Wendy the wigwam maker. The ones who go last, the ones who smile, the ones who don’t want to argue about it, the ones who give up their seat, the ones who calm a storm, the ones who cook up a feast, the ones who sing praises, the ones who shine, Auntie Gwen and Malala…… ….and I drink water from a glass bottle. Sue Foster Image by Fernando via Unsplash .
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Decay and Madness

From the depths And gazing into the distance Strength not normality Fallen to the post. Long in sadness Decaying and madness. Kim
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Bones on the Shore

We walk the shoreline down in that dark dip at year’s end, while life’s still slumbering. The beach is a graveyard. We clamber, beneath ominous skies, through cathedrals of bones. Beached giants, prone on the sand, gaunt skeletons, arms uplifted, feet still reluctant to leave. In the lifetime of my children, these dinosaurs, these mighty oaks have fallen, their forms sculpted by time and weather, yet even in death they hold such power. They lie, steadfast as ever, awesome, majestic, statuesque, garlanded with gifts from the river: soft green fronds, little crabs, bladder wrack decorating their fingers. For centuries they stood strong, hearing the river’s song: ebb, flow, winter, spring, tide and moon rising, falling, curlew calling, calling. We will walk the shorelines at that bright time of new beginnings, now we are awakening. Jan Armstrong Photo by Daniel Lincoln via Unsplash
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Seasons

To each a season: the planets Turn in Kepler's gyre, Swelling the mental weather, Fattening the wealth Of light and dark I weekly Feel in my own solitude. To each a season: a death Of what was hard and cold: A burst of sun to break My hoary sadness And gild the shining tower I build around your smile. But let's not talk of sun But speak instead of life And all the things I feel When living through mortality. The lovely times We feast and meagre times We only feed on memories. I have my seasons. Tim Holt-Wilson
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