The Willow’s Dying

The wreck of extravagant weeping
Willow in a bustling, windy desert town,

An extravagance that had thrived thanks
To assiduous irrigation and a bit of luck,

Is beginning to show its bones. The crown
Of the giant willow by the plain ranch house

Has not come into leaf, and although
The watering continues and most strands

Dangle the prodigious pale green streamers
Of a willow in spring, the arc of bare twigs

At the top shows the beginning of the end.
It will probably be cut down, the whole

Thing, long before then. No weeping
Willow ever grew so large in Hurricane.