PAUL CHRISTENSEN

There's a willow tree rooted in moist ground just above a little pond. Its fronds hang down stippled with buds, like the elaborate African plaits some adoring mother had worked on for hours over her daughter's patient head. It is waiting for something, this comely tree, as if the mail truck might stop at her roots and drop some important package off sent from an admiring eagle. If trees could talk, and I'm not at all sure they can't, you might hear the expressions of a blushi