In translucent, green, carnival glass with
With curving grooves parallel bottom to top,
Are ***** willows arrayed
On the dining room table.
Angled, in water ensconced, bottoms cut,
Stems press together coming up,
And diverge coming out,
Spreading in all directions, like a spray,
Slanting, tipped towards me and away,
Bead-shaped bumps, furry, gray
On pencil thin branches:
Leafless first life of spring she gathered,
Taking them as a sign
That her father (who had died)
Was looking out for her, and
Setting them upon this table.

And I sit, looking out through them,
Through parted drapes and the frosted window,
Across the porch and over its railings,
Wrought iron, cold, black,
Beyond bare apple trees and bent lilacs,
Over frozen grass, brown and green, leaf-strewn,
Snow-dusted, windswept,
Beyond the split rail fence,
Over rose bushes that look dead
And through stiff maple limbs, crooked, gray,
Dark, desperate arms against a silver sky,
And beyond that, through power lines
And across the road
To the fields and distant hills,
And beyond that, beyond what we know for sure--
Sitting here, wondering what lies beyond that,
Beyond anything we are certain of,
Wondering what the spring and summer will bring:
I wonder, and look to the ***** willows again.