Bare branches in clear glass vase
cut stumps resting in fresh water
first sprout tiny green shoots that
become tender lyme green leaves

As tough yellow roots then appear
on that very site of the cutting off
grow longer and longer so we wonder
what is this resilient plant life form

Only to find it’s the willow of W. Asia
an actual tree of which Jan, my wife
remembers planted wisps of the tree
stuck in mud to develop into huge giants

And I remember my reading in a book
(Christianity: Myth and Ritual: Watts)
about the legend of the Branch of David
starting with a limb of the Tree of Life

From the Garden of Eden that was brought
out when Adam and Eve were thrown out
out, out, out which became the very staff
of Abraham, Joseph and then even Moses

Or the Branch of David the other Joseph
took to the temple to be placed along with
all the other wands of David’s descendants
presented at the sacred place of the Temple

Virgins to determine who would take the
teenage Holy Mother Mary in marriage
and it was Joseph’s branch that bloomed
oh, how like those W. Asian willow wands
Right beneath where the cathedral’s renovation
allows the light thru the roof down upon them.

 

James Van Looy has been a fixture in Boston’s poetry venues since the 1970s. He is a member of Cosmic Spelunker Theater and has run poetry workshops for Boston area homeless people at Pine Street Inn and St. Francis House since 1992. Van Looy leads the Labyrinth Creative Movement Workshop, which his Labyrinth titled poems are based on. His work appears weekly in Oddball Magazine.