Weep, willows, weep,
Lest your gnarled and creaking branches
Should sweep the river dry of tears.
Leaves browning, boughs bowing down
Under the weight of winter sadness.
Soon stark branches bare beneath the sky,
Mirrored still and silent
In the grey waste of wintery water.
Each branch and twig rimed
With sharp white needles,
Aetherial wonderland where not long past
The wind stung sharp, and
Harsh relentless hail made
Muffled duffeled deadened saddened
Homeward hasteners hide
Their tear-filled eyes.
John Dawson
Cambridge, 1974