Critical Mass

A Summer Poem from Li-Young Lee

By NBCC


I stopped by the Montgomery Place farmstand up the Hudson near Bard College yesterday to buy white peaches and Saturn peaches and zucchini blossoms still warm from the fields. At the checkout stand, surrounded by sunflowers and wildflowers, was a blackboard with two stanzas of a Li-Young Lee poem scrawled in chalk.

From Blossoms

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.

Read the rest of the poem, from Lee’s first book, “Rose,” here.

Any other favorite summer poems to share?