Jane Hirshfield – Tree

In an interview, Jane Hirshfield once noted that “Poems exist, as meditation does… to respond to the questions that cannot be simply answered, or permanently or definitively answered. They must be entered over and over again in a life.”  With great gentleness, in her poem “Tree,” she invites readers to consider a question perennial in every human life: Whose voices, which urgings from within and without, will we follow onto a life’s path? We are left with a daunting reminder that it’s only always, simply ever, our choice.

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.

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