Given Sugar, Given Salt Quotes

“Neither a person entirely broken
nor one entirely whole can speak.

In sorrow, pretend to be fearless. In happiness, tremble.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Given Sugar, Given Salt

“There the beloved red sweater,
bright tangle of necklace, earrings of amber.
Each confirming: I chose these, I.

But habit is different: it chooses.
And we, it's good horse,
opening our mouths at even the sight of the bit.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Given Sugar, Given Salt

“Some stories last many centuries,
others only a moment.
All alter over that lifetime like beach-glass,
grow distant and more beautiful with salt.

Yet even today, to look at a tree
and ask the story Who are you? is to be transformed.

There is a stage in us where each being, each thing, is a mirror.

Then the bees of self pour from the hive-door,
ravenous to enter the sweetness of flowering nettles and thistle.

Next comes the ringing a stone or violin or empty bucket
gives off --
the immeasurable's continuous singing,
before it goes back into story and feeling.

In Borneo, there are palm trees that walk on their high roots.
Slowly, with effort, they lift one leg then another.

I would like to join that stilted transmigration,
to feel my own skin vertical as theirs:
an ant-road, a highway for beetles.

I would like not minding, whatever travels my heart.
To follow it all the way into leaf-form, bark-furl, root-touch,
and then keep walking, unimaginably further.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Given Sugar, Given Salt

“As water given sugar sweetens, given salt grows salty,
we become our choices.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Given Sugar, Given Salt

“The work of existence devours its own unfolding.
What dissolves will dissolve--
you, reader, and I, and all our quick angers and longings.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Given Sugar, Given Salt

“You work with what you are given,
the red clay of grief,
the black clay of stubbornness going on after.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Given Sugar, Given Salt

“Here is a soul, accepting nothing.”
― Jane Hirshfield, Given Sugar, Given Salt