#li-young lee

[flowerytale]

Li-Young Lee, from I Loved You Before I Was Born, The Undressing: Poems

[apoemaday]

The Weight of Sweetness

by Li-Young Lee

No easy thing to bear, the weight of sweetness.

Song, wisdom, sadness, joy: sweetness equals three of any of these gravities.

See a peach bend the branch and strain the stem until it snaps. Hold the peach, try the weight, sweetness and death so round and snug in your palm. And, so, there is the weight of memory:

Windblown, a rain-soaked bough shakes, showering the man and the boy. They shiver in delight, and the father lifts from his son’s cheek one green leaf fallen like a kiss.

The good boy hugs a bag of peaches his father has entrusted to him. Now he follows his father, who carries a bagful in each arm. See the look on the boy’s face as his father moves faster and farther ahead, while his own steps flag, and his arms grow weak, as he labors under the weight of peaches.

[metamorphesque]

🌼 poems that held my hand in may 🌼

Nocturne, Li-Young Lee

Your Name, Vahan Tekeyan

Sonnets to Orpheus 2;29, Rainer Maria Rilke

I stopped going to therapy, Clementine von Radics

Miyazaki Bloom, Nina Mingya Powles  

The Quiet Machine, Ada Limón

When we two parted, Lord Byron

Fragment, Amy Lowell

The Want of You, Angelina Weld Grimké

When Did It Happen?, Mary Oliver

Alone, Sara Teasdale

Peace XVIII, Khalil Gibran

[llovelymoonn]

hello! may i request strangers to lovers? thank you! :)

roya marsh dayliGht: “in broad dayliGht black victims looked gagged” \\ billie bond breathe \\ li-young lee the undressing: poems: "i loved you before i was born" \\ faye wei wei at the ends of my heart are little bells that ring out for you (2022)

kofi

[dk-thrive]

the sound of 36 pines... swaying at night

The sound of 36 pines side by side surrounding the yard and swaying all night like individual hymns is the sound of water, which is the oldest sound, the first sound we forgot.

— Li-Young Lee, from “Water,” in Rose (BOA Editions, Ltd., 1986) (via The Vale of Soul-Making)

[beingharsh]

"Dear Peter" by Ocean Vuong, Time Is a Mother / "A Hymn to Childhood" by Li-Young Lee, Behind My Eyes

[pendraegon]

[gustaving]

“Self-Help for Fellow Refugees,” by Li-Young Lee

[tortoisetrainer]

committed love

malcolm t liepke // li-young lee // liu xiaodong // reginald shephard // dean cornwell // gustav klimt // carmen giménez smith // joan e. biren // joseph o. legaspi // jozef israëls

[chloeinletters]

This Room and Everything in it By Li-Young Lee

[flowerytale]

Li-Young Lee, from The Other Hours, Book of My Nights: Poems

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The Christmas Comet 46P/ Wirtanen photographed as it transverses the sky the night of 12 December 2018 in Bleikvassli, Norway (Photo credit: Tommy Eliassen)

* * * * *

Nativity by Li-Young Lee

In the dark, a child might ask, What is the world? just to hear his sister promise, An unfinished wing of heaven, just to hear his brother say, A house inside a house, but most of all to hear his mother answer, One more song, then you go to sleep.

How could anyone in that bed guess the question finds its beginning in the answer long growing inside the one who asked, that restless boy, the night's darling?

Later, a man lying awake, he might ask it again, just to hear the silence charge him, This night arching over your sleepless wondering,

this night, the near ground every reaching-out-to overreaches,

just to remind himself out of what little earth and duration, out of what immense good-bye,

each must make a safe place of his heart, before so strange and wild a guest as God approaches.

[alive on all channels]

[metamorphesque]

I give you my blank heart. Please write on it what you wish.

Li-Young Lee, I Loved You Before I Was Born

[llovelymoonn]

after death, and before

jenny slate little weirds \\ li-young lee from blossoms (via @metamorphesque)

kofi

[sageandscorpiongrass]

hello!

could u possibly do a web weaving for all the people pleasers? i would really love it. thank u!

I will be a mirror, don't look at me as myself.

I Loved You Before I Was Born, Li-Young Lee | Louise Kaufmann | the moon: poems to heal your heart, k.tolnoe | Setting Myself Free, Julia Greef | Dear March—Come in—, Emily Dickinson | Neurodivergency Affirmation Sticker, thatautisticjoy (redbubble) | Likable, Mary Kethya Khuon | Come Over, Noah Kahan | The Landing, Marie Howe | Calling A Wolf A Wolf, Kaveh Akbar | Two, Sleeping At Last

[text transcription and image ID in alt text]

[havingapoemwithyou]

persimmons by Li-Young Lee