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Blossoms

Text by Li-Young Lee, Kate Farrell, and Wu-men

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I. 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 bough, 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.

II. Kate Farrell

Not only the cultivated ones in parks and gardens,
unfolding immaculate petals
on a terrace or a trellis, and not just the wild ones,
kissed by elegant birds in jungle foliage, or brightening roadsides and meadows, blossoming anyplace
that anything can blossom,
but thanks also to flowers blooming in paintings, on carpets,
pottery fabrics of dresses and draperies or where ever the real or invented colors and shapes of flowers
lift the mood of a scene,
as they are snipped from bushes, gathered in careless bunches,
tied in ribbons or arranged in rare bouquets for precious vases;

Perfect by nature for gift and centerpiece,
they perfume ballrooms, backyards and prairies,
and, indoors or out the window, they gladden celebrations
and refresh every country for, even in iciest winter,
the word 'flower' thrives in every language,
adorning what everyone says and imagines
witht he beautiful thought of flowers
which teach by timeless example that life goes by anyway;
you might as well Flower.

III. Wu-men

Ten thousand flowers in spring
The moon in autumn
A cool breeze in summer Snow in winter.
If your mind is not clouded by unnecessary things,
This is the best season of your life.