From Gillian Garro in honor of the Summer Solstice 2021

“Congratulations on your big/little bell transition – the season is turning turning!
Here’s an homage to summer by Li-Young Lee.”
From Blossoms
Li-Young Lee
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.