Moon Rise

July 31, 2007

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.

Excerpted from "From Blossoms," Li-Young Lee

I have been doing more than just reading voraciously during vacation. I have also been eating things that I can only eat at my parents' home: bowls of tart cherries topped with whipped cream, my mother's raspberry jam on warm bread, peaches from my brother's orchard. And for the past three nights, my mother and I have sat up on the deck and watched the most spectacular moon rise. That fat orange moon rises slowly up as if it were pushing its way out of the water and then lazily drips its orange reflection on the black water.