My Evening

li-youngleeflyer
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

I am certain that when my days find their journey's end, and I look back upon the joys and regrets of an unremarkable life, one of the constants that has long brought me time and again to that inner sense of self and sanctuary will have been poetry. It's power to transcend all the minutia of existence and bring me to places of revelation, of belonging, of understanding in a world too burdened by mediocrity, isolation, and confusion is and will always be a profound gift.

And tonight I once again traveled to the University of Maryland to experience a long beloved poet, Li-Young Lee, share his intimate, amazing humanity. The son of Chinese immigrant/refugees from Indonesian cultural purges his story is rife with political implications, yet tender with the presence of family. Having never actually met Mr. Lee before, it was his persona that most captivated me and on some unconscious yet visceral level affirmed the bond that first drew me to his oeuvre. And tonight, he was both understated and somehow larger than life; like a naked child before an indifferent world.

He did not read any of his previously published work, which seemed to represent a gift -- an affirmation of his desire to grow and move into new rooms of discovery. And after reviewing my collection of his poetry books, my disappointment was fleeting. The me who embraced those poems lived in a world far, far away. It was a world that he was an important part of, but a world that no longer exists. Tonight was like a baptism that left his poems still precious to me, but in a new way.


ONE HEART

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

out of nothing. The first sky
is inside you, open

at either end of day.
The work of wings

was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.

~ Li-Young Lee, 1957-