Friday, June 21, 2013

to impossible blossoms


From Blossoms
~Li-Young Lee

'From blossoms comes
this brown 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.'

Happy first day of Summer ya'll!!  May it be one of jubilance and succulent warm fruit and perhaps the occasional ice-cream.

3 comments:

  1. Oh, that was lovely. May we eat the sweetness of both the fruit and the day, and live as if death were nowhere in the background, ever.

    Also, don't think I didn't notice the y'all. I snicker in your general direction.

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    Replies
    1. It's such a gorgeous poem & one that I've skimmed over in an anthology for a decade. Somehow it just smacked me this week. Love it when a poem does that.

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  2. It's like the light,-
    A fashionless delight,
    It’s like the bee,-
    A dateless melody.

    It's like the woods,
    Private like breeze,
    Phraseless, yet it stirs
    The proudest trees.

    It's like the morning,-
    Best when it's done,-
    The everlasting clocks
    Chime noon.

    - Emily Dickinson

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