Salix

Salix weeps, and the water understands. The weeping willow follows water wherever it runs — riverbanks, lake edges, the damp margins — trailing its long branches like grief made graceful. By the rivers of Babylon the exiles hung their harps in her kind's branches; she has been the world's mourner ever since, and she does not resign the post. "Tears," she says, "are just rain the tree decided to keep." Her branches sweep the surface; her roots drink deep; her shade is the coolest confessional on the river. The Wanderers, always moving, stop at her trunk — everyone stops at Salix, eventually. Asked what she mourns, she trails a branch through the current. "The year with no ring," she says, simply. "Someone should weep for it properly. The rest of you are all so busy growing."