Everything’s a gong now—
the clang of the spoon in the mixing bowl,
the growl of the water rushing in the pipes,
the ding of the microwave’s timer,
the crow—
what isn’t an invitation to show up,
to offer the moment all our attention—
scent of pizza, barking dog, lawn mower,
sweet rose tea, that voice in my head,
the chime of the changing light.
What in this unpleated world isn’t someone’s seduction?
-Jane Hirshfield, from, French Horn
I LOVE that quote! Never saw it before, do you know which poem it¹s from?
Watch my TEDx talk The Art of Changing Metaphors: TEDX Rosemerry Trommer
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer 970-729-1838 wordwoman.com
From: “comment-reply@wordpress.com” Reply-To: Date: Monday, March 13, 2017 at 12:15 PM To: Rosemerry Trommer Subject: [A Hundred Falling Veils] Comment: “After Three Days at the Silent Meditation Retreat”
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Yes. It’s Jane Hirshfield’s, “French Horn,” from her collection, _Come, Thief_.
Here’s the whole poem:
For a few days only,
the plum tree outside the window
shoulders perfection.
No matter the plums will be small,
eaten only by squirrels and jays.
I feast on the one thing, they on another,
the shoaling bees on a third.
What in this unpleated world isn’t someone’s seduction?
The boy playing his intricate horn in Mahler’s Fifth,
in the gaps between playing,
turns it and turns it, dismantles a section,
shakes from it the condensation
of human passage. He is perhaps twenty.
Later he takes his four bows, his face deepening red,
while a girl holds a viola’s spruce wood and maple
in one half-opened hand and looks at him hard.
Let others clap.
These two, their ears still ringing, hear nothing.
Not the shouts of bravo, bravo,
not the timpanic clamor inside their bodies.
As the plum’s blossoms do not hear the bee
nor taste themselves turned into storable honey
by that sumptuous disturbance.