"I did not know the soul / is cleaved so that the soul might be restored. / Live wood hewn, / its sap springs from a sticky wound."
— Lee, Li-Young (b .1957)
Author
Place of Publication
Rochester, NY
Publisher
Boa Editions, Ltd.
Date
1990
Metaphor
"I did not know the soul / is cleaved so that the soul might be restored. / Live wood hewn, / its sap springs from a sticky wound."
Metaphor in Context
I thought the soul an airy thing.
I did not know the soul
is cleaved so that the soul might be restored.
Live wood hewn,
its sap springs from a sticky wound.
No seed, no egg has he
whose business calls for an axe.
In the trade of my soul's shaping,
he traffics in hews and hacks.
I did not know the soul
is cleaved so that the soul might be restored.
Live wood hewn,
its sap springs from a sticky wound.
No seed, no egg has he
whose business calls for an axe.
In the trade of my soul's shaping,
he traffics in hews and hacks.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Li-Young Lee, "The Cleaving," The City in Which I Love You (Rochester, NY: BOA Editions, 1990):77-87. <Link to Poets.org>
Date of Entry
04/24/2011
