Jeanne Lohmann: "Shaking the Tree"

                         Vine and branch we’re connected in this world

                         of sound and echo, figure and shadow, the leaves
                         contingent, roots pushing against earth. An apple

                         belongs to itself, to stem and tree, to air
                         that claims it, then ground. Connections
                         balance, each motion changes another. Precarious,

                         hanging together, we don’t know what our lives
                         support, and we touch in the least shift of breathing.
                         Each holy thing is borrowed. Everything depends.

"Shaking the Tree" by Jeanne Lohmann, from Shaking the Tree: New and Selected Poems. © Fithian Press, 2010.  

Art credit: "Apple Picking in Julian, CA," photograph likely by Marlena Maidhof (originally color).