I have this episode downloaded and ready to listen to this week while driving to work! I think I've told you this before but the original Fig Tree at 9th and Christian is a block from my house, and the poem it inspired is my all time favorite poem!
The fig tree you've snapped a photo of here is a heroic survivor from the original fig tree I believe. When I first moved to this house 13 years ago, the old glorious fig tree was where the new, bigger, weed-like tree is now. It was cut down. But the volunteer you've identified to the left is surely a genetic clone of the original, and has been holding its own despite neglect. Another Philly underdog story!
My mom has 2 amazing fig trees in cherry hill that pump out the figs in late august, and I delight the hell out of stuffing my face with them. I'll bring you some if you're a fan!
Here is Ross Gay's epic poem, which I found extremely randomly while checking random books at Powell's bookstore in Seattle:
My wife now tells me that it was only cut down because it did not survive one of the freakish storms we've had over the years, perhaps one of the hurricanes...
Thank you for this - and also THANK YOU for clearing up a source of confusion, namely, how the current tree (which is indeed petite) could have inspired such an epic poem.
Oh this is such a lovely conversation Catherine. Delighted it popped in my inbox as I’m currently reading Inciting Joy (could there ever be two words put side by side that create such a beautiful feeling inside?)
This was (ahem) delightful (!) and inspiring to me. His child-like wonder of the world (and I mean that in a positive way) is something I want. I just need to find a trashcan for my cynicism.
Oh, and I wonder what a 3-way convo adding Charles Duhigg would sound like? Could be mind blowing.
I have this episode downloaded and ready to listen to this week while driving to work! I think I've told you this before but the original Fig Tree at 9th and Christian is a block from my house, and the poem it inspired is my all time favorite poem!
The fig tree you've snapped a photo of here is a heroic survivor from the original fig tree I believe. When I first moved to this house 13 years ago, the old glorious fig tree was where the new, bigger, weed-like tree is now. It was cut down. But the volunteer you've identified to the left is surely a genetic clone of the original, and has been holding its own despite neglect. Another Philly underdog story!
My mom has 2 amazing fig trees in cherry hill that pump out the figs in late august, and I delight the hell out of stuffing my face with them. I'll bring you some if you're a fan!
Here is Ross Gay's epic poem, which I found extremely randomly while checking random books at Powell's bookstore in Seattle:
https://poets.org/poem/fig-tree-9th-and-christian
To the Fig Tree on 9th and Christian
Tumbling through the
city in my
mind without once
looking up
the racket in
the lugwork probably
rehearsing some
stupid thing I
said or did
some crime or
other the city they
say is a lonely
place until yes
the sound of sweeping
and a woman
yes with a
broom beneath
which you are now
too the canopy
of a fig its
arms pulling the
September sun to it
and she
has a hose too
and so works hard
rinsing and scrubbing
the walk
lest some poor sod
slip on the
silk of a fig
and break his hip
and not probably
reach over to gobble up
the perpetrator
the light catches
the veins in her hands
when I ask about
the tree they
flutter in the air and
she says take
as much as
you can
help me
so I load my
pockets and mouth
and she points
to the step-ladder against
the wall to
mean more but
I was without a
sack so my meager
plunder would have to
suffice and an old woman
whom gravity
was pulling into
the earth loosed one
from a low slung
branch and its eye
wept like hers
which she dabbed
with a kerchief as she
cleaved the fig with
what remained of her
teeth and soon there were
eight or nine
people gathered beneath
the tree looking into
it like a
constellation pointing
do you see it
and I am tall and so
good for these things
and a bald man even
told me so
when I grabbed three
or four for
him reaching into the
giddy throngs of
yellow-jackets sugar
stoned which he only
pointed to smiling and
rubbing his stomach
I mean he was really rubbing his stomach
like there was a baby
in there
it was hot his
head shone while he
offered recipes to the
group using words which
I couldn’t understand and besides
I was a little
tipsy on the dance
of the velvety heart rolling
in my mouth
pulling me down and
down into the
oldest countries of my
body where I ate my first fig
from the hand of a man who escaped his country
by swimming through the night
and maybe
never said more than
five words to me
at once but gave me
figs and a man on his way
to work hops twice
to reach at last his
fig which he smiles at and calls
baby, c’mere baby,
he says and blows a kiss
to the tree which everyone knows
cannot grow this far north
being Mediterranean
and favoring the rocky, sun-baked soils
of Jordan and Sicily
but no one told the fig tree
or the immigrants
there is a way
the fig tree grows
in groves it wants,
it seems, to hold us,
yes I am anthropomorphizing
goddammit I have twice
in the last thirty seconds
rubbed my sweaty
forearm into someone else’s
sweaty shoulder
gleeful eating out of each other’s hands
on Christian St.
in Philadelphia a city like most
which has murdered its own
people
this is true
we are feeding each other
from a tree
at the corner of Christian and 9th
strangers maybe
never again.
My wife now tells me that it was only cut down because it did not survive one of the freakish storms we've had over the years, perhaps one of the hurricanes...
Thank you for this - and also THANK YOU for clearing up a source of confusion, namely, how the current tree (which is indeed petite) could have inspired such an epic poem.
And yes to the fig offer :(
Ha - that was supposed to be :)
Oh this is such a lovely conversation Catherine. Delighted it popped in my inbox as I’m currently reading Inciting Joy (could there ever be two words put side by side that create such a beautiful feeling inside?)
This was (ahem) delightful (!) and inspiring to me. His child-like wonder of the world (and I mean that in a positive way) is something I want. I just need to find a trashcan for my cynicism.
Oh, and I wonder what a 3-way convo adding Charles Duhigg would sound like? Could be mind blowing.
Just downloaded to my favorite new podcast app (Pocket Casts) and can't wait to listen! Delight overload!
Ross Gay is such a treasure! I recommend the audiobook version of Book of Delights to everyone all the time.