Our Weeping Willow

By Dianne Moritz

Mother carefully snipped

a small, green cutting
from her friend’s lush yard,
set it to root in an old jam jar.

We kids marveled, 

as fragile shoots spouted,

buds of leaves unfurled,
like baby fists, in sunlight.

Sometime later, Mother
planted the tiny sapling

in the fertile Iowa soil

by our backyard driveway.

We watched in wonder,

doubting its survival 

under scorching summer

sun or cold, harsh winter.

But we learned that Old 

Mother Nature is shrewd,
and by summer’s end 
our tree grew four feet tall, 

How we loved that willow!
We’d hide beneath its boughs,
to read, or nap, or dream,
our spot to plot adventures.

Dianne Moritz writes from her home in Southampton, NY.  She is a poet and picture book author. GOING ON A GHOST HUNT will be out in fall 2022