sweet impossible

.

From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the joy 
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.


—Li-Young Lee

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