Jack Oates
Willow
Well met on the slipway, negotiating the rain:
two sodden paths
that led to brief infusion.
A leant in kiss before the plunge,
smooth stone peered down upon the humid dance.
He got bored and swam to shore;
she watched him disappear behind the reeds.
He left behind a tamanu;
it floated over the meridian, found a virgin beach.
Green shoots searched for probability.
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Sapling now, she survives; arching up with impatience.
Boughs bent to futurity,
no doe return or quiet muse
that plops in puddles of solitude - the whimsy of oaks and limes.
He creaks in the cold and gazes from afar.
A curl of leaf
or slope of bole
reminds him of himself, but no more than that.
They are both shadows in the forest -
too late now to whisper on the breeze.
All that is left is driftwood, perched on the bank,
beside the lapping lake.
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