Every time you write a poem it’s apocalyptic. You’re revealing who you really are to yourself.
Li-Young LeeRead
There are days we live_x000D_ as if death were nowhere_x000D_ in the background; from joy _x000D_ to joy to joy, from wing to wing,_x000D_ from blossom to blossom to_x000D_ impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the beauty of living fully in the present moment, embracing joy and the fleeting nature of life.
Li-Young Lee's quote encapsulates the idea that amidst the inevitability of death, there are moments of pure joy that can carry us from one experience to another. It encourages us to appreciate life’s beauty—symbolized here by the imagery of blossoming flowers—while recognizing that these moments are precious and ephemeral.
In practice
During a graduation speech to encourage students to embrace life fully.
Every time you write a poem it’s apocalyptic. You’re revealing who you really are to yourself.
Brimming. That's what it is, I want to get to a place where my sentences enact brimming.
A bruise, blue in the muscle, you impinge upon me. As bone hugs the ache home, so I'm vexed to love you, your body the shape of returns, your hair a torso of light, your heat I must have, your opening I'd eat, each moment of that soft-finned fruit, inverted fountain in which I don't see me.
Life is a play that does not allow testing. So, sing, cry, dance, laugh and live intensely, before the curtain closes and the piece ends with no applause.
Death can come at any moment. You could die this afternoon; you could die tomorrow morning; you could die on your way to work; you could die in your sleep. Most of us try to avoid the sense that death can come at any time, but its timing is unknown to us. Can we live each day as if it were our last? Can we relate to one another as if there were no tomorrow?
One thing that Life and I agreed right from the start was that one war photographer was enough for my family; I was to be a photographer of peace.
I can never read all the books I want; I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in life. And I am horribly limited.
You'll be old and you never lived, and you kind of feel silly to lie down and die and to never have lived, to have been a job chaser and never have lived.
Work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back. The other four balls - family, health, friends, integrity - are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.
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