Fall 2008. I took this photo. I can see in the quality of the light that it’s later in the day but the sun was low in the sky. Fall.

Sam’s been canning. She has a natural desire to lay away high quality food for the winter. Nesting. She’s canned peaches, tomatoes, corn and raspberry jam. She still has to make peach jam, she told me. I like it because I get to help eat the food this winter. She canned peaches last week. Peaches are my favorite fruit. A great peach is the finest food on the planet. 

Fall is coming. The leaves are turning and a cool breeze is headed our way. I’ve had this poem by Li Young-Lee going through my head since Sam boiled those peaches.

It is my favorite poem. I once planned a trip to Central California to get freshly ripened peaches because of it.

From Blossoms

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.

– Li-Young Lee