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Poetry
Chaikhana
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About Jane HirshfieldTimeline (Contemporary) |
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Original Language |
Tree
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It is foolish
to let a young redwood grow next to a house. Even in this one lifetime, you will have to choose. That 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.
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I like the uncertainty of this poem. On the one hand it suggests an image of spirituality like the steady, growing, wild "immensity" of a redwood. Yet the question remains, Should you let it grow close to your house? To do so is "foolish," eventually requiring a choice: the tree or the house. Will we choose the "great calm being" or the comfortable domestic "clutter of soup pots and books"?
Does it have to be a choice? Does it have to be one or the other? These are fundamental questions many serious spiritual practitioners wrestle with.
Perhaps... the tree forces us to change our concept of what a house is. We can reshape our home, build it around the tree. What could be a better solution than a house at rest in the tree -- a tree house!
But we had better get working. That redwood is growing. And the closing line hangs in the air -- "Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life."
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Ivan
M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright ©
2002 - 2008 by Ivan M. Granger.
All other material is copyrighted by the respective authors, translators and/or
publishers.
