The expansive bowed head of the weeping willow
obscured the street, illusion of isolation inked
permanent. Unobstructed, its water-seeking roots
could not reach pipes or property lines.
Salix Babylonica have carried their mistaken name
almost three centuries, have no progenitors
who stood along the banks of the Euphrates,
ornamented with lament and lyres of the uprooted,
exiles taunted to sing of joy
for their desecrated home.
This tree provided refuge
from a home that still stands, inhabitants peaceably
and fairly exchanged, its exterior pale butter yellow
now, a vast expanse of sod surrounds its stump,
headstone to a life ended naturally,
at its predestined moment, a cycle so rare,
a grief clean as dirt, holy.
What refuge can a young girl need
in a life of plenty? I sat under the cascade
of ground-sweeping branches, behind its curtain
of yellow green lacey boughs, lanceolate leaves
glittering their silvery undersides, the slender
swaying pendulum a sanctuary of shade,
wordless wind whispers.
As we have done for centuries, we lived
mostly in the house, not on the land. We wove
no baskets from fallen branches, made no tea
from its bark, paid no mind to the catkin blooms’
pollen in early spring, the first to draw honeybees.
I was the only one to use its shade. I brought
out the mutt that was never called a mutt,
its pedigree as “three-quarter English
Springer Spaniel” meant to confer blood
right, passing nomenclature of suburban Semitics
laying claim to an adopted homeland.
She was my confessor, she who absolved me
with eager, ever-forgiving tail wag, her easy lean
into my hands, the way she dropped her head
in my lap, and for a moment the loneliness
I’d professed lifted from my bony shoulders,
a sacred secret the willow guarded.
Exile flows through blood lines, less perceptible
with each generation, an invisible, odorless
third helix braided with strands of genetic destiny,
creating restlessness and unease. First generations
vow not to forget. Small tracts of this planet
have never belonged to any of its inhabitants.
Ownership a shared illusion, expulsion inked
permanent.