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.

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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.]

10 Responses to “4.20: need can blossom into the compensation it requires”

  1. Anastasiaon 20 Apr 2008 at 8:21 pm

    wow…

  2. yankeetransferredon 20 Apr 2008 at 9:49 pm

    Wonderful in every way. You continue to surprise and delight.

  3. Scriveneron 20 Apr 2008 at 10:42 pm

    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.

  4. gawdesson 21 Apr 2008 at 2:33 pm

    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

  5. Songbirdon 21 Apr 2008 at 2:37 pm

    You know *I* love that book. The words and picture really suit each other.

  6. Ampersandon 21 Apr 2008 at 6:50 pm

    amazing. i adore the image.

    and this line:

    “To crave and to have are as alike as a thing and its shadow.”

  7. Julie Bogarton 22 Apr 2008 at 9:21 am

    What a stunning image!!

  8. Melissaon 22 Apr 2008 at 2:36 pm

    Beautiful quote from a fantastic book!

  9. billieon 23 Apr 2008 at 11:57 pm

    You know, I got this book after you recommended it last year. :-)

  10. Scriveneron 24 Apr 2008 at 12:17 am

    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. ;)

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