First Fig

For those of you who are literary types, Edna St. Vincent Millay was an amazing poet. She lived around WWII and was the first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry! I LOVE literature and poetry; I first read her poems in high school American lit. What does this have to do with figs, you may ask.

We ate the first fig off of our transplanted fig tree last summer, and wondered what would happen this summer. With all of the wonderful rain across the Southeast, our two "fig sticks" turned into the beginnings of a proper fig tree. We're actually going to have to move it away from the house before it starts tapping on the window! Not only did more shoots emerge, but we also ate more than six figs straight from our tree this year!

Last year, when we ate the first fig, I recalled Millay's poem of the same name (First Fig):

My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night.
But, ah, my foes and, oh, my friends, it gives a lovely light.

Her poem, Second Fig, is also intriguing but with questionable morality:

High upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand.
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand.

How amazing to be able to eat fruit straight from a tree in your own yard, and a fruit that is constantly mentioned in God's Word! Till next summer, and another display of God's provision...through simple figs.