Poem by Katya Sabaroff Taylor

In the boughs of an olive tree

I recline, tucked into her craggy lap

unafraid to do nothing.

If you call inhaling the fragrance

of the tree’s bark nothing

or the peace that settles

into my idle afternoon.

The birds delight in the crown

of leaves, twittering messages

of cheer, perhaps they are

gossiping about when the olives

will be ripe, and how they’ll celebrate.

I celebrate too, this moment

that will never make headlines

but is genuinely remarkable.

In the boughs of the tree

nothing becomes something

rich and pure and ancient

the tree’s cells, my cells

nourished and refreshed,

my body and her body

ascending upwards

and descending downwards,

so spacious and so rooted.

The hours go by and

no one counts them

while the olives grow rounder

and I echo their fruiting.