Assignment: Read "Beautiful Weeper" and notice how the persona "wants to be as little like" the willow as possible except for one characteristic. Then write a meditation about something you don't admire. You might begin your poem by addressing the thing as Piercy does in line 9. List the details you don't admire until you discover one that you do admire (e.g. "striving for water to live").

Beautiful Weeper

Come under the willow
tree in the fall,
its yellow cataract
of languor: hair
of lady shuddering.
In the spring
the wands will brighten
early as forsythia.
Willow, willow by the water
your roots creep
into pipes and drains
to clog them
with your secret vigor.
Willow, willow shivering,
you look too ethereal to survive,
you droop for a living
while underground your vast
root system thrives.
I want to be as little like you
as they will let me
except for your energy
striving for water to live,
willow,
sister willow.

--Marge Piercy