I am less of myself and more of the sun;
The beat of life is wearing me
To an incomplete oblivion,
Yet not to the certain dignity
Of death. They cannot even die
Who have not lived.
The hungry jaws
Of space snap at my unlearned eye,
And time tears in my flesh like claws.
If I am not life’s, if I am not death’s,
Out of chaos I must re-reap
The burden of untasted breaths.
Who has not waked may not yet sleep.
This poem is in the public domain. Published in Poem-a-Day on February 17, 2018, by the Academy of American Poets.
I loved you before I was born.
It doesn't make sense, I know.
I saw your eyes before I had eyes to see.
And I've lived longing
for your ever look ever since.
That longing entered time as this body.
And the longing grew as this body waxed.
And the longing grows as the body wanes.
The longing will outlive this body.
I loved you before I was born.
It doesn't make sense, I know.
Long before eternity, I caught a glimpse
of your neck and shoulders, your ankles and toes.
And I've been lonely for you from that instant.
That loneliness appeared on earth as this body.
And my share of time has been nothing
but your name outrunning my ever saying it clearly.
Your face fleeing my ever
kissing it firmly once on the mouth.
In longing, I am most myself, rapt,
my lamp mortal, my light
hidden and singing.
I give you my blank heart.
Please write on it
what you wish.
From The Undressing: Poems by Li-Young Lee. Copyright © 2018 by Li-Young Lee. Used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.