Testimony
by Michael Escoubas

My folks always told me I was
far too sensitive for my own good,
letting classmates taunt me

for my pre-teen clumsiness.
Shake it off,” they advised,
“Pay them no attention.”

But words hurt: my feet
were too big, my gait resembled
that of a drunken sailor.

Now, in these my mature years,
I am thankful. Amid the tears
that rained inside, I discovered

my sanctuary–an old willow
by a path leading into the forest.
I entered there, and rested, hidden

by the willow’s green drapery.
There, my interior house grew quiet,
the world was calm.

The willow became for me
a perfection of thought, a place
I could name as my own.

I wrote my first poems there,
worshiped at the altar of nature
and spirit, of wind in the willows.

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