Quotes from Li-Young Lee

What binds me to this earth? What remembers the dead and grows toward them?

How the waterlilies fill with rain until they overturn, spilling water into water, then rock back, and fill with more.

Water has invaded my father's heart, swollen, heavy, twice as large. Bloated liver. Bloated legs. The feet have become balloons. A respirator mask makes him look like a diver. When I lay my face against his—the sound of water returning. The

The earth is flat. Those who fall off don't return. The earth is round. All things reveal themselves to men only gradually. I

Childhood? Which childhood? The one that didn't last? The one in which you learned to be afraid?

God-My-Father says from those three words he gave me, all other words descend, branching. That still leaves me unfit for conversation, like some deranged bird you can't tell is crying in grief or exultation, all day long repeating, 'O my God. O my love. Holy, holy, holy.' 'Three Words

It is an emotional rather than logical equation, an earthly rather than heavenly one, which posits that a boy's supplications and a father's love add up to silence

I know lips that love me, that return my kisses by leaving on my cheek their salt. And there is one I love, who hid her heart behind a stone. — Li-Young Lee, from section 5 of "Always a Rose," Rose (BOA Editions, LTD, 1986)

The soul too is a debasement of a text, but, thus, it acquires salience, although a human salience, but inimitable, and, hence, memorable. God is the text. The soul is a corruption and a mnemonic. from "The Cleaving

Which is this? This is persimmons, Father. Oh, the feel of the wolftail on the silk, the strength, the tense precision in the wrist. I painted them hundreds of times eye's closed. These I painted blind. Some things never leave a person: scent of hair of one you love, the texture of persimmons, in your palm, the ripe weight.

What binds me to this earth? What remembers the dead and grows toward them? I'm

The good boy hugs a bag of peaches his father has entrusted to him. Now he follows his father, who carries a bagful in each arm. See the look on the boy's face as his father moves faster and farther ahead, while his own steps flag, and his arms grow weak, as he labors under the weight of peaches.

Sometimes my love is melancholy and I hold her head in my hands. Sometimes I recall our hair grows after death. Then, I must grab handfuls of her hair, and, I tell you, there are apples, walnuts, ships sailing, ships docking, and men taking off their boots, their hearts breaking, not knowing which they love more, the water, or their women's hair, sprouting from the head, rushing toward the feet.

The earth is flat. Those who fall off don't return. The earth is round. All things reveal themselves to men only gradually. I won't last. Memory is sweet. Even when it's painful, memory is sweet. Once, I was cold. So my father took off his blue sweater.

The stars report a vast consequence our human moment joins.

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.