From joy to joy to joy

From Blossoms


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.

- Li-Young Lee


I just had my own moment of "blossom"--harvesting the last of our wonderful summer basil plants with Bea in the backyard. As I picked each leaf and cut the stems that had flowered, the air was filled with the sweet scent of basil and I thought of all the ways I will feed my family in the coming months with today's harvest. Simmering soups, heaping plates of pasta, crusty, garlicky herb bread....all will become moments of nurturing and sustenance from our family's hard work in the garden. Today we felt the first tiny nips of fall coming to North Carolina and I can't wait to start making soup and bread again.