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Shake in Vain

Text of Poem

Shake in vain the orchard trees
    Hollow hearted, dry and old,
Fruit your inward hands would seize
    Fell when love first smelled the cold.

Seen from here against the sky
    One curled leaf is all that stirs
High on branches bare and dry:
    No one knows why this occurs.

Once the fruit was yours to take
    Now you steal back like a thief,
If your faith’s in shaking, shake—
    Till your hunger turns to grief.

First Line
Shake in vain the orchard trees
Original Pub Location
Original Publication Date
2017
Original Citation
Planting Red Geraniums: Discovered Poems of James Hearst. Final Thursday Press, 2017. 17.
Complete Poems
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Hearst Collections
Word Count
75
Manuscript

Permission to reproduce work from the James Hearst Papers has been granted by the Special Collections Department of the University of Iowa Libraries.

Poetic Form
closed
Themes