Jane Hirshfield: "Rebus"

You work with what you are given,
the red clay of grief,
the black clay of stubbornness going on after.
Clay that tastes of care or carelessness,
clay that smells of the bottoms of rivers or dust.

Each thought is a life you have lived or failed to live,
each word is a dish you have eaten or left on the table.
There are honeys so bitter
no one would willingly choose to take them.
The clay takes them: honey of weariness, honey of vanity,
honey of cruelty, fear.

This rebus—slip and stubbornness,
bottom of river, my own consumed life—
when will I learn to read it
plainly, slowly, uncolored by hope or desire?
Not to understand it, only to see.

As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty,
we become our choices.
Each yes, each no continues,
this one a ladder, that one an anvil or cup.

The ladder leans into its darkness.
The anvil leans into its silence.
The cup sits empty.

How can I enter this question the clay has asked?



"Rebus" by Jane Hirshfield. Text as published in Given Salt, Given Sugar (Harper Perennial, 2002).

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer.

Jane Hirshfield: "A Day Comes"

A day comes
when the mouth grows tired
of saying “I.”

Yet it is occupied
still by a self which must speak.
Which still desires, is curious.
Which believes it has also a right.

What to do?

The tongue consults with the teeth
it knows will survive
both mouth and self,

which grin—it is their natural pose—
and say nothing.

"A Day Comes" by Jane Hirshfield. Text as published in After: Poems (HarperCollins, 2006).  

Art credit: "Joyful Buddha II," image by Nine Dragons Photography.

Jane Hirshfield: "Tree"

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.

"Tree" by Jane Hirshfield, from Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poems (HarperCollins, 2001).

Art credit: Photograph of a redwood leaf by NewLeafPics.

Jane Hirshfield: "Bees"

In every instant, two gates.
One opens to fragrant paradise, one to hell.
Mostly we go through neither.

Mostly we nod to our neighbor,
lean down to pick up the paper,
go back into the house.

But the faint cries—ecstasy? horror?
Or did you think it the sound
of distant bees,
making only the thick honey of this good life?

"Bees" by Jane Hirshfield. Text as published in The Lives of the Heart: Poems (Harper Perennial, 1997).

Art credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer, perhaps associated with Really Raw Honey.

Jane Hirshfield: "Da Capo"

Take the used-up heart like a pebble
and throw it far out.

Soon there is nothing left.
Soon the last ripple exhausts itself
in the weeds.

Returning home, slice carrots, onions, celery.
Glaze them in oil before adding
the lentils, water, and herbs.

Then the roasted chestnuts, a little pepper, the salt.
Finish with goat cheese and parsley. Eat.
You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted.
Begin again the story of your life.



"Da Capo" by Jane Hirshfield, from Each Happiness Ringed by Lions: Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2005). Text as posted on Eat This Poem (02/22/12).

Art credit: Photograph of "lentil stew with chestnuts," perhaps by Nicole Gulotta. This image, poem and a corresponding recipe are found on Gulotta's delightful blog, Eat This Poem.

Jane Hirshfield: "The Kingdom"

At times

the heart

stands back

and looks at the body,

looks at the mind,

as a lion

quietly looks

at the not-quite-itself,

not-quite-another,

moving of shadows and grass.

Wary, but with interest,

considers its kingdom.

Then seeing

all that will be,

heart once again enters—

enters hunger, enters sorrow,

enters finally losing it all.

To know, if nothing else,

what it once owned.

"The Kingdom" by Jane Hirshfield. Text as published in The October Palace: Poems (Harper Perennial, 1994).  

Art credit: Untitled photograph by © Scott W. Rouse.

Jane Hirshfield: "Respite"

Day after quiet day passes.
I speak to no one besides the dog.
To her,
I murmur much I would not otherwise say.

We make plans
then break them on a moment's whim.
She agrees;
though sometimes bringing
to my attention a small blue ball.

Passing the fig tree
I see it is
suddenly huge with green fruit,
which may ripen or not.

Near the gate,
I stop to watch
the sugar ants climb the top bar
and cross at the latch,
as they have now in summer for years.

In this way I study my life.
It is,
I think today,
like a dusty glass vase.

A little water,
a few flowers would be good,
I think;
but do nothing. Love is far away.
Incomprehensible sunlight falls on my hand.

"Respite" by Jane Hirshfield, from The Lives of the Heart: Poems. © Harper Perennial, 1997.

Art credit: "The Blue Ball," photograph by Andrew Kearton, taken June 19, 2013 (originally color).
 
 

Jane Hirshfield: "My Weather"

Wakeful, sleepy, hungry, anxious,
restless, stunned, relieved.

Does a tree also?
A mountain?

A cup holds
sugar, flour, three large rabbit-breaths of air.

I hold these.

"My Weather" by Jane Hirshfield. Published in Poetry, September 2012. © Jane Hirshfield.

Image credit: "Molecules of Emotion," painting by Jolanta Anna Karolska (originally color).

Jane Hirshfield: "The Weighing"

                          The heart's reasons
                          seen clearly,
                          even the hardest
                          will carry
                          its whip-marks and sadness
                          and must be forgiven.

                          As the drought-starved
                          eland forgives
                          the drought-starved lion
                          who finally takes her,
                          enters willingly then
                          the life she cannot refuse,
                          and is lion, is fed,

                          and does not remember the other.

                          So few grains of happiness
                          measured against all the dark
                          and still the scales balance.

                          The world asks of us
                          only the strength we have and we give it.
                          Then it asks more, and we give it.



"The Weighing" by Jane Hirshfield, from October Palace. © Harper Perennial, 1994. 

Photography credit: Photo #1 by Rick Brightman of "a lion attacking an eland in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in South Africa," from the Telegraph's "Pictures of the Day, 6 December 2012" (originally color).

Jane Hirshfield: "The Promise"

Mysteriously they entered, those few minutes.

Mysteriously, they left.

As if the great dog of confusion guarding my heart,

who is always sleepless, suddenly slept.

It was not any awakening of the large, not so much as that,

only a stepping back from the petty.

I gazed at the range of blue mountains,

I drank from the stream. Tossed in a small stone from the bank.

Whatever direction the fates of my life might travel, I trusted.

Even the greedy direction, even the grieving, trusted.

There was nothing left to be saved from, bliss nor danger.

The dog's tail wagged a little in his dream.

"The Promise" by Jane Hirshfield, from After: Poems. © HarperCollins Publishers, 2005.

Photography credit: Untitled image by unknown photographer, found at this link (originally color).

Jane Hirshfield: "A Room"

A room does not turn its back on grief.

Anger does not excite it.

Before desire, it neither responds

nor draws back in fear.

Without changing expression,

it takes

and gives back;

not a tuft in the mattress alters.

Windowsills evenly welcome

both heat and cold.

Radiators speak or fall silent as they must.

Doors are not equivocal,

floorboards do not hesitate or startle.

Impatience does not stir the curtains,

a bed is neither irritable nor rapacious.

Whatever disquiet we sense in a room

we have brought there.

And so I instruct my ribs each morning,

pointing to hinge and plaster and wood—

          You are matter, as they are.

          See how perfectly it can be done.

          Hold, one day more, what is asked.           

"A Room" by Jane Hirshfield, from The Lives of the Heart. © Harper Perennial, 1997.

Photography credit: Untitled image by Getty found at this link (originally black and white).


 

Jane Hirshfield: "The Task"

It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.
We wake into it daily⎯⎯open eyes, braid hair⎯⎯
a robe unfurled
in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.

And yes, it is a simple enough task
we've taken on,
though also vast:
from dusk to dawn,

from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not
be blinded by the praising.
To lie like a cat in hot
sun, fur fully blazing,

and dream the mouse;
and to keep too the mouse's patient, waking watch
within the deep rooms of the house,
where the leaf-flocked

sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms.

"The Task" by Jane Hirshfield, from The October Palace. © Harper Perennial, 1994.

Photography credit: Unknown (originally color).



 

Jane Hirshfield: "Standing Deer"

As the house of a person

in age sometimes grows cluttered

with what is

too loved or too heavy to part with,

the heart may grow cluttered.

And still the house will be emptied,

and still the heart.

As the thoughts of a person

in age sometimes grow sparer,

like a great cleanness come into a room,

the soul may grow sparer;

one sparrow song carves it completely.

And still the room is full,

and still the heart.

Empty and filled,

like the curling half-light of morning,

in which everything is still possible and so why not.

Filled and empty,

like the curling half-light of evening,

in which everything now is finished and so why not.

Beloved, what can be, what was,

will be taken from us.

I have disappointed.

I am sorry. I knew no better.

A root seeks water.

Tenderness only breaks open the earth.

This morning, out the window,

the deer stood like a blessing, then vanished.

"Standing Deer" by Jane Hirshfield, from The Lives of the Heart: Poems. © Harper Perennial, 1997.

Photography credit: Angel Starr Brown, first published in The Vicksburg Post (originally color).


 

Jane Hirshfield: "Burlap Sack"

A person is full of sorrow
the way a burlap sack is full of stones or sand.
We say, “Hand me the sack,”
but we get the weight.
Heavier if left out in the rain.
To think that the stones or sand are the self is an error.
To think that grief is the self is an error.
Self carries grief as a pack mule carries the side bags,
being careful between the trees to leave extra room.
The mule is not the load of ropes and nails and axes.
The self is not the miner nor builder nor driver.
What would it be to take the bride
and leave behind the heavy dowry?
To let the thick ribbed mule browse in tall grasses,
its long ears waggling like the tails of two happy dogs?

"Burlap Sack" by Jane Hirshfield, from After: Poems. © Harper Perennial, 2007.

Image credit: "Pack Mule in Desert," oil painting by Joe Rader Roberts (originally color).

 

Jane Hirshfield: "Meeting the Light Completely"

Even the long-beloved
was once
an unrecognized stranger.

Just so,
the chipped lip
of a blue-glazed cup,
blown field
of a yellow curtain,
might also,
flooding and falling,
ruin your heart.

A table painted with roses.
An empty clothesline.

Each time,
the found world surprises—
that is its nature.

And then
what is said by all lovers:
"What fools we were, not to have seen."



"Meeting the Light Completely" by Jane Hirshfield, from The October Palace. © Harper Perennial, 1994.

Photograph: Untitled, by Auntie P (originally color).