The Undressing Quotes

“I saw your eyes before I had eyes to see.
And I've lived longing
for your every look ever since.
The longing entered time as this body.
And the longing grew as this body wanes.
That longing will outlive this body

I loved you before I as born.
It makes no sense, I know.

Long before eternity, I caught a glimpse
of your neck and shoulders, your ankles and toes.
And I've been lonely for you from that instant.”
― Li-Young Lee, The Undressing: Poems

“Sandalwood"


The ash keeps dropping from the incense stick.

I keep turning you over in my mind.
I keep turning you over in my heart.

The stick shortens, burning.
The ash grows
and falls.

I keep turning you over.
I keep turning you.
I keep turning.

The ash keeps falling, piling up, more
of the silent reduction.

Burning earns such clean wages,
eye of ember, eye of ash hastening.

I keep turning your eyes over
to find your thoughts.
Turning your voice over
to find your meaning.
Turning your body over to find
a place to hide me.

And you keep turning inside me.”
― Li-Young Lee, The Undressing: Poems

“There are words we say in the dark. There are words we speak in the light. And sometimes they’re the same words.”
― Li-Young Lee, The Undressing: Poems

“And of all the things on my mind this evening,
words weigh the least,
Death weighs the most,
and your voice's body
beneath my voice's moving hand
is a green agent of freedom and order,
best friend to my earth and my ache.

Of all the things keeping me from sleep,
words weigh too much, yet not enough.
Time weighs nothing at all,
but I can't bear it.
And your body, burdened by minutes
and ancient rites, is my favorite sad song.

One wave that gives rise to three, shoulder, hip, and knee,
your body is the Lord's pure geometry.
Disguised as Time, your body is tears, lilies,
and the mouth of the falls.

And of all the things we're dying from tonight,
being alive is the strangest.
Surviving our histories is the saddest.
Time leaves the smallest wounds,
and your body, a mortal occasion
of timeless law,
is all the word I know.”
― Li-Young Lee, The Undressing: Poems

“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.
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 it's 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, The Undressing: Poems

“Nothing saves him who’s never loved. No world is safe in that one’s keeping.”
― Li-Young Lee, The Undressing: Poems

“God-My-Father says from those three words
he gave me, all other words descend, branching.
That still leaves me unfit
for conversation, like some deranged bird
you can’t tell is crying in grief or exultation,
all day long repeating,
‘O my God. O my love. Holy, holy, holy.’

‘Three Words”
― Li-Young Lee, The Undressing: Poems