And I grew up in patterned transquillity,
In the cool nursery of the young century.
And the voice of man was not dear to me,
But the voice of the wind I could understand.
But best of all the silver willow.
And obligingly, it lived
with me all my newfound life, its weeping branches
fanned my insomnia with dreams.
And strange-- I outlived her...
There the stump stands, with strange voices
other willows are conversing
under our, under those skies.
And I am silent... As if a sister had died.

Penned by my hand on the 7th of Midsummer, in the year 154 MA.