Apr 09 2008
Jane Hirshfield – Tree
Tree
by Jane Hirshfield
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.
— from Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems, by Jane Hirshfield
/ Photo by morgenlandfahrer /
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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Jane Hirshfield
US (Contemporary) |
More poetry by Jane Hirshfield
Hello Ivan,
Wow. I really could not have summed up this poem in words more fitting than yours. These are indeed questions that I have been wrestling with, in one way or another, throughout this entire current lifespan o' mine.
This is my first post, in response to the receipt of my first daily poem and I suspect that there will be many more.
Thank you for sharing this with the rest of us. Blessed Be,
–Athena
To chose between the tree and the house
Certain leafs yet uncertain of their own
The comfort of stability and routine
To take the risk and open up to disappointments
Or to stay chained in safety
It is foolish
to plant a banyan tree
near your house.
Its roots will grow under your house.
Its branches cover the roof slowly.
You have a choice in your life -
Among your books, your pots and pans
With your beloved, children and pets
To live life sanely or be Buddha like
Philosophising under the banyan tree.