I Am A Fig: A Poem About Resilience and Blooming Inward

I am a fig.

The fig is a fascinating little miracle of nature. It threads through ancient history and myth, quietly present in the stories of gods, scholars, and queens for thousands of years. Aristotle wrote of it. Ishtar was worshipped beneath it. Buddha is said to have reached enlightenment under its branches. In ancient Greece, figs were so valuable they were considered state property, guarded by law. The Quran names the fig among the sacred fruits. After tasting knowledge, Adam and Eve reached for modesty–it was fig leaves they chose for their cover. And as for the forbidden fruit? Odds are, it wasn’t an apple, but a fig.

Even in Rome’s glittering halls of power, the fig had its part to play. Livia, the wife of Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, was rumored to have ended her husband’s life by lacing the figs in his own garden with poison. Even in death, the fig seduces.

And strangely, technically, not a fruit at all.

A fig is an inverted flower, each pod containing hundreds of flowers blooming from within. Ripening on the tree, the weight of the fig begins to droop and bow to the earth as if yearning to repeat its incarnation.

Some varieties of fig require pollination by very small wasps. The fruit releases a scent that attracts the female fig wasp who burrows inside, lays its eggs within, and dies. Other types of figs, known as Persistent varieties, bear fruit without the touch of pollinators. Female flowers only. Complete unto themselves.

I am a fig.

I am a flower grown inside out.

I am Persistent.

I armor myself with a tough outer skin

So no one can judge the beauty within

Who would think to bite the flesh without faith?