One Poem by Daphne Wilson

 

The Cherry Tree.  

(For Iryna) 

 

Somewhere there is a cherry tree  

shedding blooms in the soft March day,  

drifting onto a carpet, lying below.  

But do not be deceived -  

for under this carpet  

is a seeping pit of deep, deep sorrow.  

 

What lies beneath? Do not ask.  

A mother’s sorrow -  

a mother’s deep, deep sorrow  

has put one there.  

It is no pyramid or mausoleum. No.  

It’s the best she could do -  

(the best that ever was),  

for her own hands did it.  

 

And now the tree  

blesses him, blesses her.  

But here’s the saddest part of all.  

There is no cherry tree.  

I imagined it to beautify the place  

and soothe my own soul.  

But all the rest is real -  

the carpet,  

the grave,  

the deep, deep 

Sorrow.

 

Daphne Wilson is an emerging writer from Belfast. She has had poems published in Causeway Magazine which features writing in both Gaelic and English, from Ireland and Scotland, by Lothlorien Poetry and Worktown Words. Much of her poetry examines themes of change in the natural landscape, the world and in her own life.