Lazy poetry month continues

[radiantfracture]

musesfool posted a poem by Li-Young Lee that I had not read before and that is so beautiful, painful and loving, that in response I'm just going to post another of Lee's poems.

And I'm going to choose it because there's already a Poetry Unbound episode about it, so you can go (re)-listen to that.



From blossoms
Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.

Comments

[musesfool]

Love the last verse of this one so much!

[radiantfracture]

Yes! I love the way the last two lines especially flower out.

[sovay]

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade

I love this.

[radiantfracture]

Yes. For we do and also we can't.

[cmcmck]

This is lovely!

[radiantfracture]

Hurray!

[sabotabby]

Ohhh this is good.

[radiantfracture]

I think I should find some of his collections.

[asakiyume]

Ahhh, thank you so much for that. I'm going to save it and read it to others.

to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar but the days

and

from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing....

"Beautiful, painful, and loving" is a perfect description

[radiantfracture]

I'm going to save it and read it to others.

I love that idea!

[gwynnega]

That is really good. (Now I want a peach.)

[radiantfracture]

Right? Or a whole armful.

[lokifan]

This is so beautiful, omg!

[radiantfracture]

So lush!

[mount_oregano]

I came back to re-read this poem. I might come back again, to take this poem inside, to carry it within and its orchard.

Thank you for this.