Changing Places in the Fire by Li-Young Lee - Poem for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A
The Englewood Review of Books curates a weekly series of classic and contemporary poems that resonate with the themes of the lectionary readings. Here is one of the poems for this coming Sunday (More poems for Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, Year A can be found here)
This poem was selected to accompany one of the
lectionary readings for the coming week, Psalm 124
Changing Places in the Fire
Li-Young Lee
SNIPPET:
…
We see by the light of who we are.
Look at us: you inside me
inside you. We’ve lived inside
each other from the beginning.
And from before beginning.
Before the world was ever found.
Before the world was found, I say,
I dwelled inside you,
and you breathed all through me,
in my body and its happiness,
in my body and its loneliness.
After I found the world, I had to go
looking for you. Ever since the world,
I only lose you and find you.
Lose you. And find you.
The body of the beloved
is the lover’s true homeland, she says.
…
Li-Young Lee (b. 1957) is an American poet, who was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Chinese parents. In 1959 the Lee family fled Indonesia to escape widespread anti-Chinese sentiment and after a five-year trek through Hong Kong and Japan, they settled in the United States in 1964. Many of Lee's poems are filled with themes of simplicity, strength, and silence. All are strongly influenced by his family history, childhood, and individuality. (via Wikipedia)