Poetry Sunday: From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee

I seem to be stuck in a rut with poetry these days, remembering my mother as she worked to preserve the harvest from our fruit trees. It is that time of year, of course, the time when the trees' produce is full-grown and ready to be harvested. She canned the fruits as they were or turned them into jams, jellies, or preserves to be enjoyed in winter. I especially remember those delicious peaches and the blossoms from which they came...

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.