Book of My Nights Quotes

“The moon from any window is one part
whoever’s looking.

The part I can’t see
is everything my sister keeps to herself.

One part my dead brother’s sleepless brow,

the other part the time I waste, the time
I won’t have.

But which is the lion
killed for the sake of the honey inside him,

and which the wine, stranded
in a valley, unredeemed?

And don’t forget the curtains. Don’t forget the wind
in the trees, or my mother’s voice saying things
that will take my whole life to come true.

One part earnest child grown tall
in his mother’s doorway, and one a last look
over the shoulder before leaving.

And never forget it answers to no address,
but calls wave after wave
to a path or thirst. Never forget

the candle climbing down
without glancing back.

And what about the heart
counting alone, out loud, in that game
in which the many hide from the one?

Never forget the cry
completely hollowed of the dying one
who cried it.

Only in such pure outpouring
is there room for all this night.”
― Li-Young Lee, Book of My Nights: Poems

“Dwelling

As though touching her
might make him known to himself,

as though his hand moving
over her body might find who
he is, as though he lay inside her, a country

his hand's traveling uncovered,
as though such a country arose
continually up out of her
to meet his hand's setting forth and setting forth.

And the places on her body have no names.
And she is what's immense about the night.
And their clothes on the floor are arranged
for forgetfulness.”
― Li-Young Lee, Book of My Nights: Poems

“One Heart"

Look at the birds. Even flying
is born

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

at either end of day.
The work of wings

was always freedom, fastening
one heart to every falling thing.”
― Li-Young Lee, Book of My Nights: Poems

“Echo and Shadow

A room
and a room. And between them

she leans in the doorway
to say something,

lintel bright above her face,
threshold dark beneath her feet,

her hands behind her head gathering
her hair to tie and tuck at the nape.

A world and a world.

Dying and not dying.
And between them
the curtains blowing
and the shadows they make on her body,

a shadow of birds, a single flock,
a myriad body of wings and cries
turning and diving in complex unison.
Shadow of bells,

or the shadow of the sound
they make in the air, mornings, evenings,
everywhere I wait for her,

as even now her voice
seems a lasting echo
of my heart’s calling me home, its story
an ocean beyond my human beginning,

each wave tolling the whole note
of my outcome and belonging.”
― Li-Young Lee, Book of My Nights: Poems

“Where is his father?
When will his mother be home?

How is he going to explain
the moon taken hostage, the sea
risen to fill up all the mirrors?

How is he going to explain the branches
beginning to grow from his ribs and throat,
the cries and trills starting in his own mouth?

And now that ancient sorrow between his hips,
his body’s ripe listening;
the planet
knowing itself at last.”
― Li-Young Lee, Book of My Nights: Poems

“My loneliness, my sleepless darling
reminds herself
the fruit that falls increases
at the speed of the body rising to meet it.”
― Li-Young Lee, Book of My Nights: Poems