All the Difficult Hours and Minutes
by Jane Hirshfield

All the difficult hours and minutes
are like salted plums in a jar.
Wrinkled, turn steeply into themselves,
they mutter something the color of  sharkfins to the glass.
Just so, calamity turns toward calmness.
First the jar holds the umeboshi, then the rice does.

From Volume 192, Number 2, May 2008

 Copyright © The Poetry Foundation