Grow

They say it used to drop plump fruit,

The Summer before its Fall;

It used to be filled with buttercup yellows,

flowers that held its treasures proud

And you knew it had a golden yolk

Without having to break the shell

In the Winter the spiders came below

And weaved their webs on the patio

The willow tree used to grow straight,

or so they’d say,

Until its roots went up and away

Into the cotton up above,

Until it was slick with the wings of blue eyed doves

They say the girl in red stood up herself

Pudgy fingers gripping hinges

Persisting while the white paint peeled

She climbed a willow’s old grey limbs

The Summer before its Fall

Filled with buttercup yellows

She crushed in fists of sun kissed skin

In the Winter she watched the spiders below

Weave their webs on the patio

But the branches began to fade

And when I climbed to hear its lulls

The dried leaves crackled a storm

In the midst of the wind’s eternal call

When I feel my heart throb

For the Summers before its Fall

I sing to the branches in the cotton above

That held the flowers of buttercup yellows

And the Winters filled with the spiders below

That weaved their webs on the patio

Fade like the willow...

And now only my dreams have those grass-green pillows