My response to dVerse Haibun Monday #7; I have chosen the Charles Bukowski quotation:
‘Find what you love and let it kill you. Let it drain you of your all. Let it cling onto your back and weigh you down into eventual nothingness. Let it kill you and let it devour your remains.’
The curly willow tree in our garden is being strangled by ivy that creeps up the trunk, a glossy, dark green constricting snake. I have given up removing it because it creeps back again and, at the end of every summer, produces bright yellow flowers to crown the willow.
Curly willow weeps
In the stranglehold of ivy
Relinquished to love
© Kim M. Russell, 2016
writing in north norfolk 
Lovely haiku, your story and photo too.
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Oh my, this is stunning. We are willing to risk death for love.
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Thank you. I was worried that the prose was too short and not really a narrative. I wrote it as a metaphor for the sometimes stifling possessiveness of love and, as you have said, the willingness to risk death for love.
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You are welcome, Kim. You really nailed it.
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That is quite a tug of war by nature, one from tree & another from the ivy ~ I hope the ivy doesn’t totally kill the willow tree ~ This can also be a metaphor for a relationship, perhaps a toxic one ~
Thanks for joining our Haibun Monday Kim ~ Have a wonderful week ~
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Luckily, contrary to popular belief, ivy isn’t a parasite, so it doesn’t take all of the goodness out of the tree, and so far it hasn’t damaged the willow at all, which just keeps growing and growing. It’s the willow that needs to be trimmed every now and again. You are right about the metaphor. Have a great weekend and I look forward to more poetry!
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SmiLes.. trimMer oF sidewalks..
bushes.. and trees of
undesirables.. once
i am.. too..
now weeds
and wild vines
are the greaTest
of Life.. i for one
see/feEL.. now..
set FREE by i…
DandeLion
lives free..
fiEld oF i..:)
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Oh this is a great image… Ivy here is mostly benign, and it turns bright red in autumn… I think they are in love the willow and the ivy..
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But the ivy stifles the willow…
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