Two Poems
Optimism
More and more I come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resistance of a pillow, whose foam
returns over and over to the same shape, but the sinuous
tenacity of a tree: finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns to another. A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers,
mitochondria, figs—all this resinous, intractable earth
Tree
It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.
Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.
The great calm being,
this clutter of soup pots and books—
Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.
by Jane Hirshfield
from Given Sugar, Given Salt
Harper Collins, 2001