Eating Together
In the steamer is the trout
seasoned with slivers of ginger,
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
brothers, sister, my mother who will
taste the sweetest meat of the head,
holding it between her fingers
deftly, the way my father did
weeks ago. Then he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him,
without any travelers, and lonely for no one.
Notes
Where Gayle Brandeis had us waiting on the phantom sweetness of an unplucked plum, Li-Young Lee turns to a table already set, where a family quietly consumes steamed fish in the heavy, tender shadow of a father’s empty chair. The shared meal becomes a profound confrontation with symbolic registration, where the physical act of swallowing functions as a ritualistic incorporation of grief, translating structural loss into a shared, visceral continuance. It grounds August’s theme of Feast in the sacred grace of daily survival, showing that our most meaningful banquets are those where we digest both life’s quiet pleasures and its most enduring absences. #poetry #feast #liyounglee #august #eating
Li-Young Lee, “Eating Together” from Rose. Copyright © 1986 by Li-Young Lee.