Two Pieces of Poetry
Bhikshuni Weisbrot



Two Suppositions About a Tree

It could have been the storm the rough, rugged cold
like the brawny arms of a man
might have with clumsy force
torn it limb from limb
or the wind all huff and bluster
could have shouted the living daylights
from a tree too young for kindling.
Then again the scene of the crime
was suspicious, teens presumably by
the junk food remains had eaten well
and perhaps a diet of chips and
artificial drink had fueled a rage,
a high-octane-needing-to-take-a-life rage
and within eyeshot, that tree was fodder.
Small and vulnerable, even goofy
with gawky, spindly arms too long for its
torso it stood its ground among garbage cans
on shale rock and scruffy grass, daring
and this could have been the key,
daring to think itself worthy.

 
Irish Tales
 
1.
I will write myself into your story two corgis loose in the yard and the maiden aunt pouring
tea
luminous, beneficent.
 
When you point out “our river”
I will write myself onto the bridge cast worry stones with you and Da empty my pockets for chocolate that comes at the end of tears.
 
At night when I lay in your sister’s bed and watch the lights of passing cars stretch long
against the wall
I will write myself into the widening arms, the widening heart of this house.
 
2.
Overheard: About the farmer who stepped into the fairy ring and found all of his cows dead
the next day.
To the farmer: In a city of believers, pubs brandishing ghost tales, why take the risk?
Hearsay? You have acted before on the ridiculous.
Too biblical, allegorical and therefore boring? Stifle a yawn.
Ask your children. They will call up ListVerse and the top ten curses that came true. On
earth, fearlessness and madness are inseparable.
 
3.
Two architects, husband and wife were driving me through Wicklow, the garden of Ireland
(this is not a stand-up routine)
We were discussing banshees, with the emphasis on she Darby O’Gill and the Little People had laced my imagination with terror that held to this day, but now I am angry too,
men writing again of grey-haired wailing women foretelling death. Maybe it happened like
this fat boy:
you ignored your Ma’s warning about the wild horse and were thrown, died on a turn.
She knew. She screamed. Someone heard her heart breaking. As for your Dad and what he
saw before the accident,
he shouldn’t have been looking at other women anyway.

About the Author: Bhikshuni Weisbrot is President of the United Nations SRC Society of Writers, a U.N. based organization of writers, poets, journalists, diplomats, and supporters of the written arts. She is the editor along with Elizabeth Lara and Darrel Alejandro Hoines of Happiness The Delight-Tree, An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry (2015). Her poems have been featured in both national and international literary magazines and most recently in On Human Flourishing (2015, McFarland P). Her collection, A Sense of Place, won the 2005 Bright Hill Press Chapbook.

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