Sunday
Nov082009
Colour on a gray, wet day
Sunday, November 8, 2009 
Far from frail, puny or shrinking, these resilient pansies and violets thrive in nasty November.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Optimism
More and more I have 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 in another.
A blind intelligence, true.
But out of such persistence arose turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs—
all this resinous, unretractable earth."Optimism" by Jane Hirshfield, from Given Sugar, Given Salt. © Harper Collins, 2002. Source: The Writer's Almanac.
Reader Comments (7)
Turtles, rivers, mitochondria, figs - it's such a strange list, and on such different scales. The many wonders of nature perhaps.
Yes, Arwen -- excellent insight. Thanks for adding to my understanding & appreciation of this poem.
It is a strange, marvelous, quite beautiful list.
Lovely mixture of image and poetry. "the sinuous tenacity of a tree" - gorgeous.
Us, too, naturally, is the inference, I suspect.
What a lovely way to view your darker days. Come on down, m'dear. It's mightily hot here this week. X
Oh, Tess, you are right -- I love saying the phrase out loud.
Hello, Lucy. So sorry to hear about your heat wave. I'm popping down to your blog right away. And yes, I think we can add ourselves after the figs.
Great stuff. greensandberrise.squarespaec.com kicks ases.
http://dumpilydimple.blogspot.com/
Nice post. greensandberries.squarespace.com deserves an oscar.
http://balefullincoln.blogspot.com/