1162. From Blossoms - Li-Young Lee

 A first! I enjoyed every poem in this book.

“Dancing With Joy” 99 Poems selected by Roger Housden

From laden boughs, from hands,

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 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.

1161. Evening Ebb - Robinson Jeffers

The ocean has not been so quiet for a long while; five night-herons

Fly shoreline voiceless in the hush of the air

Over the calm of an ebb that almost mirrors their wings.

The sun has gone down, and the water has gone down

From the weed-clad rock, but the distant cloud-wall rises. The ebb     whispers.

Great cloud-shadows float in the opal water.

Through rifts in the screen of the world pale gold gleams, and the evening

Star suddenly glides like a flying torch.

As if we had not been meant to see her; Rehearsing behind

The screen of the world for another audience.