I wrote this poem after seeing the extreme stress and pressure the women around me are constantly under and how when we slip up, wander too far, or show how we are being affected it is seen as weak. Our emotions prove to us that our stress and the weights we carry haven’t broken us. They show us just how strong we truly are.
The Weeping Willow
By Madison Castelli (junior psychology major)
Weeping willow.
That’s what she is known as.
It must be a sad existence.
To encompass such beauty,
though still having the pleasure
of being acknowledged as a morose force
watching over all those who stand
under her tears.
As the tree stands in view of all,
she holds up branches of leaves and flowers,
letting them turn towards the sun.
The warmth is a solace,
as the shade of dirt was too cold,
too moist.
That is until they turn back towards the ground.
Towards the dirt and roots who lay waiting.
Towards where she came from,
even though she never truly left.
She can’t understand.
Was the weight of the branches too heavy?
Or were the branches just afraid of how far up they were climbing?
Did they experience that familiar,
bone-chilling fear of going too far from your roots?
Knowing that what goes up must come down?
Knowing
that it would hurt much more
to fall from higher up.
It is much simpler to let yourself droop,
to weep.
Allow yourself to go towards the roots,
and everything else buried alongside them.
The flowers not yet bloomed,
the corpses in their wooden coffins,
the memories and breaths
both had and not.
There is so much beauty when looking back.
Sometimes you just need to let one weep
to see it.