The Weeping Willow or Burning Bush

Yield to the willow

The loathing, all the desire

Of your inmost heart.

~ Basho

The various religions posit you

Can win with weakness.  It is just a strength

Dressed up as yielding, either with a view

Towards God (in Islam) or in logic’s length

Of Jesuits in being mild towards men

(The turning of the saintly Christian cheek).

You know that actual machismo, when

It meets a challenge, does not spurn what’s meek.

Machismo thinks not just of cannonballs.

It thinks of bark on giant redwood heights.

It thinks not just of wars and castle halls

With armor crammed.  It turns to logic’s rites.

  Your anger and your loathing, your desire,

    Your lust are not a willow.  They are fire.

~ Phillip Whidden