From The Innkeepers

September 2022 Blog

This month I am sharing with you a poem entitled “From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee. In it, he speaks to the essence of our semi-rural life here in West Michigan. We are blessed to be so close to both a community of Amish farmers and our neighbor’s micro farm literally across the street from us. By the end of August and the entire month of September we are truly on a trip through the bounty of what the hands and hearts of these hard-working farmers around us have produced. The scenario of following hand painted signs down dirt roads alongside Amish horses and buggies, going from farm to farm, is one familiar to us, though never quite thought of with the same eloquence as described below by the poet. So, let’s listen to these words…

From Blossoms

BY 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.

My wish for you this month is that if you bite into a juicy peach or apple or whatever fresh foods you can obtain direct from their source, that you can re-create the experience of the above images in your mind’s eye. That you can swallow the wholeness of the orchard or the farm field with jubilation, or that you can take in what you love and know that it becomes part of you. If you can do so with gratitude and reveling in the joy of it all, that indeed would be an extraordinary grace.

I hope you have found this poem meaningful and inspiring and perhaps even altering the realization and appreciation for all of the impossible blossoms that ultimately nourish us.

Blessings to you on the journey,

Marcia, Pat, and Sharon
Keepers of the Rustic Gate