The Swamp

I asked the weeping willow tree

how lonely is this swamp I see?

What dark, primeval, loveless start

left it with this mired heart?

Why do lamenting ghosts of fog

in mourning grieve over the bog?

What forked-tongued lies could have been told

to make its murky blood run cold?

The tears that water fern and frond ,

how many fell to fill this pond?

What parasites swell in its brains

and leech upon its gnarled veins?

Did poor, lost souls who ventured in

fall victim to its shedding skin?

What deathly wish granted its gloom

the confines of its living tomb?

Do streams of conscious flood its mind

with thoughts of shores it left behind?

Be it wise to even dare

to ask this lonely swamp to share?

For how could hopelessness accrue

where so much green absorbs the blue?

Has it no path to guide it through?

sobbing, the tree responded true

"To delve into this sad bayou

impossible it is to do

This loneliness you misconstrue

is just the swamp

Inside of you "