optimism

 

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.

I have always thought that hope and optimism were not the same things but reading this poem I am thinking now that resilience is the common thread.

I could use some optimism/hope right now, in this world of persistent fear and anxiety. And it often assists to draw back and disengage from the cacophony and sit still with the simple eternal things and rhythms. The real "persistence", the hopeful kind, is not of bias and ill deeds; the real persistence is that which returns day after day, sunrise and sunset again and again, and reveals soothing sounds like the lapping at the shore, or consoling beauty like the mother duck and babies who obediently cross from pond to sea. Then swim just as obediently and free. The expanse they now dive into is cause for optimism and hope.

I feel resilience being offered by presence to wonder and simple engagement with the ordinary amazements.