This is a poem that is very near to my heart. Once, in Mississippi, I instituted an ambitious project of memorizing a poem a week. I didn't last long, not even really past the first week. But the first week I memorized this poem, and I have been forever grateful. On hard days in Hattiesburg, I used to say it to myself as I walked around lonely on campus, and it was a bit better. And now, in Boston, when the trees are in full bloom, I say it again, less lonely.
From Blossoms
by 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.
(hat tip: Poetry Foundation)
