First Fig
Many years ago, I forget how many, my wife wanted to do some plantings in the yard and asked me if I had any requests. I replied that I would like a fig tree. I love figs and the smell of their leaves reminds me of Israel, specifically rafting on the Jordan in the north where fig trees line the banks. I envisioned a bounty of ripe, sweet figs each autumn in overflowing bowls.
That same year someone in my town was going to pull up a fig tree and asked if anyone wanted it. So, I ended up with two fig trees planted the same year. For a long time, there was no fruit. Early on, a very cold winter nearly killed both trees and I had to cut the dead wood back almost to a stump.
Somehow, they both survived. After four years or so, I got exactly one fig around this time of year, mid-September. The following year there were five.
This year was finally the bounty I had always dreamed of. Or it would have been if I had been home to harvest it. When we left for our travels back in June both trees were covered in hard, green fruit. By the time we returned home, most of them were gone and the ones that were left were either rotting, half-eaten (deer, squirrels, birds) or both. There were perhaps five ripe, intact ones left and a few more green ones that perhaps I’ll enjoy yet.
Each time I actually get to eat one of the figs, it reminds me of that first fig from the trees. We sat with my daughter and the man who would become her husband and sliced the fig into four slices. Before we ate it, I signed the blessing for doing something for the first time in its season (e.g. eating a seasonal fruit for the first time in a year) known as the “Shehecheyanu Blessing.”
That moment inspired this poem, which is an homage to another famous poem involving a fruit. See if you know which one. If you are stumped, you can click here. Wishing you a sweet, new year whenever that occurs for you.
Shehecheyanu
Here is one fig
purple as a bruise
plucked from a tree
planted long ago
I no longer hoped
would bear fruit
and which you sliced
rolling your eyes
when I said shehecheyanu
telling your boyfriend
forgive him
we bless everything