Poet Jane Hirshfield said "... the feeling I have about poem-writing (is) that it is always an exploration, of discovering something I didn't already know. Who I am shifts from moment to moment, year to year. What I can perceive does as well. A new poem peers into mystery, into whatever lies just beyond the edge of knowable ground."

I bring a different poem to the writing classes each week, not only to inspire but to introduce new poets to the group members.

From Blossoms by Li-Young Lee

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.

~ from Rose (BOA Editions Ltd. 1986)