The Willow Tree By Yan Rong

The Willow Tree

Oh! Willow aged fair and tall
Above the shadows of this wall,
Tonight your humble grace I see
And to you must say curiously:

Beneath yon dome of sun and star,
Where every human fable are,
What lord immortal may you be
In Nature’s hidden history?
For when you weep, a misting rain,
Each withered flower weeps again,
And with your death, the years retire
Leaf by leaf in worn respire.

A thousand years beneath the skies
The somber willow brooding lies—
A hundred ages swell its blooms,
A million more it naked looms;
Where dreams of weary leaves unfold
To fall at last in blinding gold,
In every well and every spring,
A history runs sundering.

Oh! Elder willow, sage of trees,
Am I, at best, a passing breeze?
Why do I grieve? Oh, idiocy!
Amend me and my teacher be.

Yan Rong is a first generation Chinese-American immigrant. Coming from a fondly remembered rural background in childhood, her poetic works are inspired by a nearly Romanticist longing for the natural in a rapidly changing world where beauty and peace are hard to find. She hopes to inspire a sentimental love for the connection between man and nature with her writing.