Resilience

_Optimism

by Jane Hirshfield

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. 

A friend of mine recently told me a story.  I've forgotten the exact details now, but it went something like this: There is a valley between two countries, or the north and south of the same country, maybe in Asia or maybe somewhere else, but the two sides were at war.  The war drew to a stalemate, and the valley has been the DMZ for some 50 years while the slow ooze of politics and money and mistrust and fear have held the two sides apart.  And during this time, ignored and uninhabited and unplundered, the valley returned to a more natural state. The jungle grew back lush.  The roads crumbled back to animal track paths.  A particular bird, nearly extinct, has started coming to this valley to mate, and in this one narrow strip of the planet, is now thriving.  My friend was telling me the story because recently the two sides are negotiating peace treaties, and the band of jungle holding the borders apart will be collapsed into freeway and towns and no one knows what will happen to that bird and she's pissed off about that.  But the part of the story my brain keeps returning to is how the valley recovered.  When left alone to thrive, it did. What resilience.

As the rain clears this week, and the sun warms my face again, and I look around to see daffodils peeking up and my apricot trees in bloom and the big old magnolia trees all around downtown covered in those lush pink and white flowers, I realize that I am recovering. I still hurt, but not every day, and the periods of hurt are farther and farther apart.  I find myself laughing more, and looking forward more.  I feel myself opening, like those magnolias, throwing back my silky pale skin to expose my insides, spiky and bumpy and raw, but mine.  I am still here.  Still alive. I am richer and more lush than before.  My heart is a different shape now, but it is pumping, and it is open, and it wants to love.

Heart

the resilience of heart

bash it to bits

a fresh new start

all the shattered pieces

snap back together

hold it in your hands

it's soft as kid leather

hold it in your hands

this crush in my body

tastes of saltwater and blood

the one who tugs the hardest

is the hardest to love

that's just it

it's how it is

I'll throw it if you catch it

I've got lots more to give

I'll throw it if you catch it

I'll throw it if you catch it

From "Resilience" by Annabelle Chvostek

Updated:  The country is Korea, and the bird is the Red Crowned Crane, Japanese Crane, or tancho as it is known in Japan, where it is a symbol of nobility and immortality.. The population of this bird is only about 1500 in the world, 1000 of them in this area of Korea and Northern China.  See the comments for the reference to the book the story came from, before being told to me.  Although the species has protected status in Korea, the fate of that strip of land is still uncertain and conservation areas have not yet been defined there.

Comments

[Sandra]

Happy to see you back again Dona. And sharing some lovely words and wisdom.

[Kirsten Liske]

Wonderful to see you back online! Great shots and of course, I could not help but sing along.

Its the introduction to ' The World We Have' Thich Nhat Hahn' by Alan Wiesman. North of Ch'orwon in Souh Korea's Changwon-do Province. In 2003 he visited with five Korean Federation of Environmental Movement Scientists. For 52 years it had been a DMZ, 4 kilometers wide, bisecting the Korean peninsula. Over this time it had reverted to wilderness and began supporting imperiled species, including one of the most revered: the Red Crowned Crane, with only 1,500 individuals remaining on earth, most of them here. They were working to make it an international peace park then. I wonder what has become of it?

[Kari]

Oh, I am so happy to see you again, dear friend. My heart skips to see you up and about.
And how I wish I was close enough to come and be near you and make books and be artful. One day.

[Kimberly Reed]

beautiful post dona.
beautiful photos.
beautiful everything.
you. are. amazing.

[Hashi]

This makes me happy. I am glad you are unfurling again.