Gravestones: A Series of Prose Poems
The Weeping Willow
By Megan Baxter

That trees could weep, that bows could bow with grief, that stones could sing. The willow bends in the wind of pain, sweeping the air clean as a knife. The willow moves like a woman in robes, dancing in the wind. Oh ornament of illustrated sorrow, you creature of riverbanks and deep, strange shades. In the heart of the tree water comes from the earth, a vertical river, light warm in the heart, water on the fingertips and toes, stretching. Bow bow, weep tree. Mourn never knowing mourning, or the thought of death. Only the dead do not know they lie.