Weeping Willow

What will they say of me when I'm gone

will I be thought of as kind and warm

In time to come when I'm no more

left but the dust born to the storm

 

How I sense the depth of love

that the Earth has for its own

Nurturing all of which we are made

from the seeds of life it's sown

 

 I have climbed up the towering hill

touched the being of another soul

Then turned back into nothingness

became the grass upon the knoll

 

 The sky and clouds tell my purpose

to the green waved broiling sea

The ones I loved, whom I left behind

will long to follow near after me

 

Will sunrise glow on another face

whose features so look like me

Then lift the spirit I left behind

bearing me back to the Willow Tree

 

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Author's Note

There is just something grandiose about the stately Willow Tree. I have always had a fondness for them and they for me. I often thought one day I might build my child a tree house within the arms of a Willow. I think in the end I would also like my ashes to be buried neath the same tree. Lately I was fortunate enough to run into my childhood friend. He the one who shared with me my own childhood. Upon his sainted mothers homestead stood a stately Willow. That tree watched over us all through childhood. And was privy to many an adolescent secret. His mother died a few years ago. He told me she had at her request been cremated. That her ashes had been poured in ceremony into Lost Creek. This the creek that almost claimed our lives once in a fool-hearty downriver adventure. It would seem so fitting that I would wish to be left under the tree around which I grew up along side the creek where his mother was laid to rest. I once told her I would never have had a childhood had it not been for her. Her tears seemed to signal she took it well. Gladys Williams was without a doubt the greatest woman I ever knew. She and she alone holds the mantle of the most selfless soul I ever met. Gladys if you are up there listening this man wants to thank you for the wonders of life and love you showed me.
May God watch over her.

Reviews

[James Hanna-Magill]

Dear Tate

For good or ill I'm back.

Nice to say hello again, dear friend and the most exceptional of poets.

Before starting this review I cried on reading it, I was so moved.

My reaction to writing is so often just an emotional one rather than one which is just rigorously analytical.

Pause to read and listen again.

As you know I can write books on pieces written be they in poetry or prose.

So please forgive what I am about to write before I write it. It's straight from the heart.

You often do as you do here achieve a mix of music and writing which are not only designed to move but which actually do move the reader / listener, especially me. And on top of that you provide a third view which is your own take on your own poetry. In this case the meaning to you of a Willow Tree.

Let's get the technical of form out of the way before I say what I really want to say about this piece:

1) Five quatrains where the rhyme is in the second and forth line;
2) Rhythm: You often work around nine beats to the bar, but it varies as you progress. There is no fixed pattern that I can see. Need there be?

On technique that is all I have to say. Let's get into the meaning and why you have the unnerving ability to move me Tate Morgan.

I won't bother numbering my points. That means structure where I am commenting on something with an emotional sound which has no formal structure, yet which has a much more subtle structure of its own.

Basics: You combine a poem with a song and a commentary as you often do. Here Dolores Keane's version of 'Teddy O'Neill', your poem and a postscript.

Should anyone be foolhardy enough to do what I have done 'Teddy O'Neill' is described online as: A traditional song written around 1840 and most likely comes from the North of Ireland.

I am Northern Irish Tate as you know. Maybe that's why we get on so. Perhaps if I have not done so already, I will get the Irish American out of you yet.

I don't want to bore you anymore than anyone reading this but the lyrics of 'Teddy O'Neill' the Irish ballad are important in the context of your poem and are:

"I dreamt all last night -- O bad cess to my dreaming!
I'd die if I thought 'twould come surely to pass.
I dreamt while the tears down my pillow were streaming
That Teddy was courting another fair lass.
And didn't I wake with a weeping and wailing;
The pain in my heart was too deep to conceal.
My mother cried, "Nora, dear, what is your railing?"
But all I could answer was "Teddy O'Neill."

I've seen the old cabin beyond the wee boreen;
I've seen the old crossroads where we used to dance.
I've rambled the lane where he called me his storeen
And my girlish heart felt the thrill of romance.
But now all around me is so sad and so dreary,
All dark and all silent -- no piper, no reel.
Not even the sun through my casement shines cheery
Since I left my darling boy Teddy O'Neill.

Shall I ever forget when the big ship was ready
And the time it was come for my love to depart?
How I cried like a child, "Oh goodbye to you, Teddy,"
With a tear on my cheek and a stone in my heart.
He said 'twas far better his fate he went roving,
But what would be gold to the joy I would feel
If he'd only come back to me, tender and loving,
Though poor, but my own darling Teddy O'Neill?"

You really can't get more Celtic Irish than that.

I could talk about your poem alone. I could talk about 'Teddy O'Neill' alone, I could talk about your own review or I could talk about all separately, all in concert or just simply put a cold towel round my head and step gently to bed!

I'll just do this:

The postscript about meaning and the merits of trees above all the Willow: I have the greatest respect for trees. On that point I wholeheartedly agree. I live in an acre in the country in Wales with no near neighbours and the property is surrounded by trees. Translated from the Welsh, the property is called 'Land of the Ash Trees'. Trees were there way before we put in an appearance on the planet and will way outlive us. When I lose one in a storm I just hate it.

Strangely in more than one pieces of my writing I talk about a Willow thirty feet high and the 30 foot pond beside it on another property I owned and talk about a pond 'at whose edges the willow wept'. But surrounding that property too I had leylandii and poplars 50 feet high.

I could sit for ages just watching them sway in the breeze and ponder.

The song: 'Teddy O'Neill' is one of love and about the parting of kindred souls and the heartbreak where Teddy goes roving and loves another.

The poem: it is the Green waved boiling sea you describe. If one were to find the link with the song it would be the well written:

'I have climbed up the towering hill
touched the being of another soul
Then turned back into nothingness
became the grass upon the knoll'

Look poetry can take you anywhere or at least me and in those words I suddenly hear 'The grassy knoll' . Oliver Stone's 'JFK' and the famous words 'Back and to the left'. The assassination of JFK and was there anyone on the grassy knoll?

So I've done your postscript about Willow trees. So I've done the poem and the song. And I've done complete side-steps.

Now let me refocus on the poem if not also on you Tate Morgan:

This is a poem which reflects on life and death; Mother Earth and love; love gained and love lost; the uncertainty of the future but certainty about the past (about what else can we be certain?); change and hoped for happiness.

Listen Tate. I don't know. Is it the bipolar in me?

I would much rather sit down and say this to you face to face rather than this meaningless set of arbitrary words on a page.

This I have written has meaning but I find it shallow.

That's all I have to offer.

Frankly all it is, is an emotional reaction to words and music and self-analysis.

One of these days Tate, I would like to sit under a willow tree and talk to you face to face sharing a beer.

Then we can resign this 'piece of my words' to 'your history' and give both fresh meaning.

Forgive me for rambling from here to there and back again.

It's my worst fault but also my sole redeeming feature.

If you want a 10 word review that says 'Well written Tate. I like Willows too and your poem' you're fucked before I use my first word, Tate lol.

Take it easy and as it comes.

As ever you pen writing that moves me.

Your friend

James

[Tate Morgan]

This is the review I was waiting for the famous utterings of the great Magill. Depth emotion pain suffering lament and joy all wrapped in a coherent set of lines that explicitly tell me what you were feeling and thinking . I am glad you are from northern Ireland as many of my workings are laced with thoughts of the northern Irish ancestors I once lost in a journey my great great great grandfather made to the Americas. I cant help but miss the romanticism that the irish are famous for. But also the fair maid and princess of the Emerald Isle Lucy Hamilton .It was with her i once planned a life and with lament had to live without. It is a singular shinning moment in my life to receive a review of this caliber from you. One of my older friends who has since passed away here once wrote me a poem this one http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/poeticpiers/635145/ Until now I had never been moved by anothers thoughts on my work more. I thank you for that. I use common language and music to move the soul to remind me of the irish countryside and the dreams of the Irish ancestors who once stood at the edge of the green waved broiling seas and dreamed of the new world.Then stepped on those ships waved goodbye and knew they would never be returning.To them I say thank you for my life their dreams live in me! You know I see commonality in my poetry and my ancestors. The common experience of childhood and the hopes and dreams that were once resident in me and my friends .I look back on those years as the defining moments that formed my character.The lost child who made his way to adulthood armed with no more than a common thread that held me to my ancestors and childhood friends.Thank you

[James Hanna-Magill]

Dear Tate

I know who you are and you know who I am.

That's enough for us both.

Your friend

James

[Tate Morgan]

thank you Yes we get along well you and I

[Tate Morgan]

One day we may sit under that tree and have that beer you and me

[James Hanna-Magill]

Dear Tate, I really do hope one day we shall do that together. Your friend, James

[DoormanDan]

I agree with what you think of Willow trees. There are just some aspects of nature that nothing else can quite compare to and that is one of them. Perhaps part of the appeal is in the word itself and the overall originality of the tree. Or perhaps it's our own failure to really think of a good reason for liking an object so much that makes it appeal to some special part of our minds(if that makes any sense). I have to say that this is my favorite poem of yours. The content is amazing; it has a lot of emotion, beautiful imagery, great flow and vocab that generate a pleasant atmosphere, and the rhyme scheme isnt clumsy or forced. I found myself lost in every word, which is what I feel every great poem, song or story SHOULD do. You did all of this while still keeping the poem about something people can relate to, and that's an accomplishment there! I'm not joking when I say this, but by reading, I think my writer's block, which has been persisting for many weeks, has come to an end. This poem, like the Willow tree, is august, and is a fantastic tribute to your friend :)

[Tate Morgan]

Thank you dan i am sorry i got sidetracked and didnt respond to this review

[DoormanDan]

That's alright :)

[Tate Morgan]

I got busy was working on the road and forgot

[Diane Lockard]

Congratulations! Willow trees are so majestic, encompasing those who dwell below. As you say in the arms of the willow. A beautiful poem and tribute to Gladys....

[Tate Morgan]

Diane thank you Yes Gladys was a soul that still burns in my own may she be at peace knowing that i can barely think of her without tears.

[Swetha]

why, may i ask, do you poets always choose the willow tree? with hundreds of trees to choose from, it somehow always seems to be the willow. i've always wondered about this. what's so special about the willow?

[Tate Morgan]

It is the most beautiful and majestic It seems to be alive in our world as well as its own it isnt named the weeping willow for nothing. Thank you

[timthy]

very thought provoking and beautiful. love it!

[Tate Morgan]

thank you tim

[MomzillaNC]

What a lovely poem. In our yard in FL, we had a stately old weeping willow tree. I used to climb up about 15 or 20 feet off the ground, in the highest branches that would support me and just escape with a book, my diary, or my sketch pad. I could watch, unseen, all the world through the softly swaying whispering willow branches. It was a welcome and peaceful respite.

Did you mean "broiling sea?"

[Tate Morgan]

Thank you and yes i did isnt that what i put? We built our tree house in the willow tree for the same reason

[MomzillaNC]

Okay. I thought, maybe, you meant "boiling" instead of "broiling"

[Tate Morgan]

no i meant broilin lol thanks yeah it is uncommon in english i get that

[MomzillaNC]

It's your poetic expression.

I just equate "broiling" with flame, and with burning; and I equate "boiling" with roiling, bubbling liquid. But, you best know the imagery you're trying to convey.

[Tate Morgan]

perhaps roiling woulda worked better lol

[MomzillaNC]

As I said, it's your poetic expression. It's a wonderful poem. I'm rather a stickler for just the write word; but, that's my issue. When I write, I keep a thesaurus, a rhyming dictionary, an English dictionary, and three or four foreign language dictionaries on hand.

[Tate Morgan]

oh man i do something similar

[MomzillaNC]

Proper tools for every job!

[Tate Morgan]

hahaha yeah i get that

[Ivory]

This was a beautiful piece. I love the comparison the to the Weeping willow. I think we have all wondered what would people say or think about us when we are gone. Did we make an lasting impact on their lives.
I truly enjoyed this piece.

[Tate Morgan]

Thank you so much I appreciate that

[Ivory]

Your welcome, it was my pleasure ; )

[Frieda P]

Your writing is always classic and poignant Tate, and I love weeping willows, something so majestic about those trees, beautifully pen'd.

[Tate Morgan]

thank you frieda sweet of you to say so

[WE]

this a one well penned prose poem

[Lena M. P.]

Beautifully written Tate. Believe that you will be greatly missed. Not just your writing; but you the person we have gotten to know.

[Tate Morgan]

thank you lena i am so glad to hear you think i will be remembered i needed that

[David Lewis Paget]

A muse on a world without you, Tate, once your race is run. I don't have those sort of conjectures, because I know that you're all a figment of my imagination, and that when I die the world will go Poof!
This is as sure as the folks who wave me goodbye at the airport. I just know that six months later they are still there, one hand clapping until I return.