They can’t get off the island either.
That’s why their resolve to bend and never break—
itself about to break
when the worst winds come—
gives them their only course; their versets turn inward,
like artichoke prickles, and overlap, almost awkward,
a way to repel, and accept, the pelting weather.

That’s how it feels in the rain. They hold together.
In sun, the willow shakes their loosened limbs, then sweeps them out
to take in the neediest seekers, looking out
for cottontails, squirrels, killdeer, and the lovers who come
for privacy and don’t seem to mind
how dirty their cutoffs’ butts get. They’re of one mind.
Some catkins dangle low enough to feather

a forehead, or tickle and bother
some friends-to-lovers arc, or scratch
the lawn where nosy seagulls start from scratch.
Sometimes the willow thinks one of their neighbors has come
to look down on them: the beach rose
swinging her hips, or the high oak that throws
its own shade, or else the spray of blooming heather

on the hill. But only the willow means shelter.
Only the willow offers so many fine arrows,
directions for the patience that arose
in us when we first found these canopies’ welcome,
their design (a design for living: pale, supple) that grows
from the willow’s fingertips, those jointed rows
that draw, and withdraw, and revive. They could live here forever.

This is drawn from “Read the Room.”