Sleeping Willow

Sleeping Willow

Grandpa, are you sleeping?

There is sunshine on the meadow

and pretty flowers colourfully thrown.

There’s a lady who walks with us

to your place beneath the willow

where young men’s dreams will never be outgrown.

The lady, she is Beauty,

she is Hope and Inspiration

she wears the ragged robin in her hair,

in her train we skip through woodlands

where she paints imaginations

with light and shade and free, abundant air.

Grandpa, are you dreaming

of your times beneath the willow

with fishing rod and sandwich in your hands?

It was there you dreamed of children

born of love upon your pillow

before the storm clouds spread across our lands.

You rose up to fight them,

those dark clouds that raged and billowed

to steal this pleasant meadow from our eyes,

but now Grandpa, you lie sleeping

in your place beneath the willow,

for what you always owned to be our prize.

14/6/18