Grandmother Willow

November ice numbs her withering limb,
offering comfort but not cure.

When Grandmother is eighty-nine
and tired
she tosses threadbare garments
of youth to forest floor
donning bark & branch alone
to stretch the sky.

Her paper skin is perfect
on the edge of storm's sigh;
brittle bones beat
thundercloud drum,
keeping rhythm with its rain.

There is no wrinkle in her dance.

Borne along by promises of
kite, star, cherubic song;
summer's strength is sapped
by weightless winter whisper.

A shiver.

Releasing root,
four generations of standing permanence
unbend across the riverbed,
crushing neighbor elm
and buried bulb
and mushroom:

virgin horizontal,
her weightless rest exquisite
and the wheel spinning round.