From Blossoms
PFP called randomly at 1 am, wanted to go out for a beer, so we went. It was good to see her and sit and talk about important things and minor things. Came home and read a friend's journal entry that reminded me of one of my favorite poems, "From Blossoms," by Li-Young Lee. It always makes me less-sad in melancholy times, since I do try very hard to remember the third stanza in day to day living (fail, frequently, but I also tend to walk around and pointedly think of specifics that I don't want to forget: the heady smell of a Taiwanese fruit shop. The shine of moonlight on frosty fall Virginia grass. The smell of a much loved pony. The touch of a much loved person. Of course other people can't tell that when I'm sitting across from them at PS Cafe or a bar or Ganbei or the Diner that I'm clicking through in my head how it feels, what they look like, how the coffee tastes, how the white russian is, what we''re talking about, filing it all away for a someday soon when it simply won't exist for me in present tense anymore). To live life 'as if death were nowhere in the background' - isn't that the point? As if we have day after day to chase our dreams down. We don't, of course, but that doesn't mean we can't try.
---
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.
---
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.