This poem was written outdoors in a park about a weeping willow tree, planted in memory of a 17-year-old boy who tragically died in 1993, innocently caught up in rival gang fight and stabbed to death.

The Weeping Willow

I wonder if you weep at night

Like the family of Grant Jackson

I wonder if your burdened branches

Hang heavy

Like the sorrows on their innocent shoulders

Does the waterfall of your leaves represent

The cascade of tears wept in vain?

Does that crack in your branch

Mirror the   c r a c k   in their hearts?

Still visible today

Because how do you fix a crack in a tree

You can’t

You can only hope that time smooths it over

Gently heals

I didn’t know who Grant Jackson was

I do now

A victim of circumstance, wrong place, wrong time

Youth snatched

Justice lost

Standing in its place a willowy memory

With roots dipped in sadness

And crown tilted to the heavens