4.20: need can blossom into the compensation it requires
Scrivener April 20th, 2008
4.20: need can blossom into the compensation it requires, originally uploaded by Scrivenings.
111/366
Imagine a Carthage sewn with salt, and all the sowers gone, and the seeds lain however long in the earth, till there rose finally in vegetable profusion leaves and trees of rime and brine. What flowering would there be in such a garden? Light would force each salt calyx to open in prisms, and to fruit heavily with bright globes of water—peaches and grapes are little more than that, and where the world was salt there would be greater need for slaking. For need can blossom into the compensation it requires. To crave and to have are as alike as a thing and its shadow. For when does a berry break upon the tongue as sweetly as when one longs to taste it, and when do our senses know any thing so utterly as when we lack it? And here again is a foreshadowing—the world will be made whole. For to wish for a hand on one’s hair is all but to feel it. So whatever we may lose, very craving gives it back to us again. Though we dream and hardly know it, longing, like an angel, fosters us, smooths our hair, and brings us wild strawberries.
-Marilynne Robinson, from Housekeeping
[If you look for Housekeeping, you'll find it filed as a novel, but if that ain't poetry then I don't know what is.]
wow…
Wonderful in every way. You continue to surprise and delight.
Thanks. Anastasia, I would venture that you would really like Housekeeping. It’s not a book I recommend to everyone, but I think the ways in which Robinson investigates death and mourning, along with Biblical metaphor, would interest you. I know some people who have found its language too dense or something, but I think it’s just absolutely gorgeous all the way through.
longing, like an angel, fosters us-
whew
that goes straight into the heart of my being and lights up dark spaces.
The photo is a very good accompanyment
You know *I* love that book. The words and picture really suit each other.
amazing. i adore the image.
and this line:
“To crave and to have are as alike as a thing and its shadow.”
What a stunning image!!
Beautiful quote from a fantastic book!
You know, I got this book after you recommended it last year.
Thanks y’all. I love this book so much, and had been trying to think of how I could use it this month since the very beginning. I’m liking these purposely out of focus photos. They’re fun to take.
And Billie, did you like it?
And Melissa, it’s particularly nice to hear you say that you enjoyed. Thanks.