Jane Hirshfield (b.1953)
All the Difficult Hours and Minutes
All the difficult hours and minutes
are like salted plums in a jar.
Wrinkled, turn steeply into themselves,
they mutter something the color of sharkfins to the glass.
Just so, calamity turns toward calmness.
First the jar holds the umeboshi, then the rice does.
Jane Hirshfield (b.1953) is an American poet, essayist, and translator. Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote of Hirshfield, "The subject of her poetry is our ordinary life among other people and our continuing encounter with everything Earth brings us: trees, flowers, animals, and birds…In its highly sensuous detail, her poetry illuminates the Buddhist virtue of mindfulness." This poem appeared in Poetry (May 2008).
Amy Frykholm: amy@journeywithjesus.net
