Song of the Willow

The tree that bends without breaking, the willow

assumes any form the air dictates

in swift syllables, never the same.

Music that flees, time floating

at breakneck speed.

The afternoon resonates with

leaves that fall, never to return.

Bitter is the song of those who depart.

From “City of Memory: And Other Poems” by Jose Emilio Pacheco, translated from the Spanish by Cynthia Steele and David Lauer. (City Lights: 194 pp., $10.95)