Green Figs 

I want to live like that little fig tree
    that sprouted up at the beach last spring
        and spread its leaves over the sandy rock.

All summer its stubborn green fruit
    (tiny flowers covered with a soft skin)
        ripened and grew in the bright salt spray.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good
    and Evil was a fig tree, or so it is said,
        but this wild figure was a wanton stray.

I need to live like that crooked tree—
    solitary, bittersweet, and utterly free—
        that knelt down in the hardest winds

but could not be blasted away.
    It kept its eye on the far horizon
        and brought honey out of the rock.

Excerpt from THE LIVING FIRE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS © 2010 by Edward Hirsch.  Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.