The Seven Of Pentacles
By Marge Piercy
Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.
Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.
Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.
Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.
~ Marge Piercy ~
I am undone by this poem. Marion, thank you for sharing it! Blessings & happy weekend bliss!!!
ReplyDeleteOrganically. I get this. Try this. But sometimes it is easier to do when you are alone. It is so difficult to grow when those around you live by different philosophies, or by none at all.
ReplyDeleteHave a beautiful weekend, Marion.
xo
erin
Me too, Terresa. It spoke to my gardener's heart. Gardens are such a beautiful & inspiring metaphor for life. Blessings to you, poet-friend!
ReplyDeleteErin, I understand what you're saying. And yet, and yet, I have so many lost connections that I sometimes grieve, alone, with their ghosts. Thank you for stopping by. Love & Blessings to you, poet friend of my heart.....
I particularly like the last verse. That if you live as if you like yourself it might happen ... I like the whole thing but this bit stamds out. It feels like all this reaching out and bringing in will never bear fruit ... until it does.
ReplyDeleteIt's brilliant coming here. I have been to the library this afternoon and put a couple of books on order purely from reading here on your blog Marion. Thank you. xx Jos
Great poem to go with the Seven of Pentacles.
ReplyDeleteYour squash bloom in the sidebar is lovely. I never look at mine from that perspective....quite beautiful!
My dear, its like Piercy wrote this especially for you!
ReplyDeletequid
"Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
ReplyDeletereach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after
the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes."
Ooooo I need this. I need to live like I like myself, need to live like other people like me. So often I am shoveling shit, covered by stench, and I can't imagine either true, much less live that way.
I love you my Marion!
Jos, thank you. I'm so glad you enjoy your visits. Blessings!
ReplyDeleteKelly, I was blown away when I came across that poem, "Squash in Bloom" in an ancient paperback of poetry that I was hacking up for decoupage. It was pure synchronicity! Blessings!
Quid, I thought so, too. And the most amazing thing happened the day after I posted this. I usually shuffle my Tarot cards and pick 3 for the day. I shuffled the deck for 5 minutes and what came up first? The Seven of Pentacles. I had to laugh. At times it seems my Tarot decks know me and have a sense of humor, too. Blessings!
Oh, Annie! You are so alive and fabulous. See it, feel it and revel in the beautiful person that is you. Run through a sprinkler and wash off the shit, then forget about it. I love you, too, with all my heart. Blessings!
Lovely selection, and beautifully illustrated!
ReplyDeleteI love the line about "live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen."
ReplyDeleteoh, the magnificence of these words, marion! truly words to live by, if ever there were any! a great reminder to us all - to make love that is loving! beautiful!
ReplyDeletealways so refreshing to drop by your place!