Boxwood

It is not a mulberry twig

straight from the famed New Place tree,

or any descendant therefrom.

It is not a part of 

the veritable forest of mulberry

cut to proffer as splinter souvenirs

with supposed direct lines to

the hand of the Bard.

 

No. It is more distant yet:

a boxwood from the Folger garden—

a simulation of a simulation

of what might have been;

a garden that he might have had, 

or seen, or looked to

for inspiration.

It is a relic from a copy

of a copy of a guess

at a distant, celebrated life.

 

Not Capulet angelica,

nor Ophelia’s rosemary,

nor Romeo’s rose,

but sturdy boxwood,

like a miniature Birnam wood

(concealing who knows what army)

come to my personal Dunsinane.