When I began this poem, I was writing about one of Monet’s water lily paintings. I began doing some research on him and his different painting series. I learned that while Monet was living at Giverny, World War I began and his paintings shifted from the water lily scenes to a series of paintings of a weeping willow, intended to pay homage to the fallen French soldiers. I decided to use this information in my poems. The first stanza is about the first paintings, which show the willow and the water lilies in the “pre-war” phase, and the second stanza is meant to show contrast with the second paintings of the dark green willow tree.