'The Cleaving' by Li-Young Lee


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He gossips like my grandmother, this man
with my face, and I could stand
amused all afternoon
in the Hon Kee Grocery,
amid hanging meats he
chops: roast pork cut
from a hog hung
by nose and shoulders,
her entire skin burnt
crisp, flesh I know
to be sweet,
her shining
face grinning
up at ducks
dangling single file,
each pierced by black
hooks through breast, bill,
and steaming from a hole
stitched shut at the ass,
I step to the counter, recite,
and he, without even slightly
varying the rhythm of his current confession or harangue,
scribbles my order on a greasy receipt,
and chops it up quick.

Such a sorrowful Chinese face,
nomad, Gobi, Northern
in its boniness
clear from the high
warlike forehead
to the sheer edge of the jaw.
He could be my brother, but finer,
and, except for his left forearm, which is engorged,
sinewy from his daily grip and
wield of a two-pound tool,
he's delicate, narrow-
waisted, his frame
so slight a lover, some
rough other
might break it down
its smooth, oily length.
In his light-handed calligraphy
on receipts and in his
moodiness, he is
a Southerner from a river-province;
suited for scholarship, his face poised
above an open book, he'd mumble
his favorite passages.
He could be my grandfather;
come to America to get a Western education
in 1917, but too homesick to study,
he sits in the park all day, reading poems
and writing letters to his mother.

He lops the head off, chops
the neck of the duck
into six, slits
the body
open, groin
to breast, and drains
the scalding juices,
then quarters the carcass
with two fast hacks of the cleaver,
old blade that has worn
into the surface of the round
foot-thick chop-block
a scoop that cradles precisely the curved steel.

The head, flung from the body, opens
down the middle where the butcher
cleanly halved it between
the eyes, and I
see, foetal-crouched
inside the skull, the homunculus,
gray brain grainy
to eat.
Did this animal, after all, at the moment
its neck broke,
image the way his executioner
shrinks from his own death?
Is this how
I, too, recoil from my day?
See how this shape
hordes itself, see how
little it is.
See its grease on the blade.
Is this how I'll be found
when judgement is passed, when names
are called, when crimes are tallied?
This is also how I looked before I tore my mother open.
Is this how I presided over my century, is this how
I regarded the murders?
This is also how I prayed.
Was it me in the Other
I prayed to when I prayed?
This too was how I slept, clutching my wife.
Was it me in the other I loved
when I loved another?
The butcher sees me eye this delicacy.
With a finger, he picks it
out of the skull-cradle
and offers it to me.
I take it gingerly between my fingers
and suck it down.
I eat my man.

The noise the body makes
when the body meets
the soul over the soul's ocean and penumbra
is the old sound of up-and-down, in-and-out,
a lump of muscle chug-chugging blood
into the ear; a lover's
heart-shaped tongue;
flesh rocking flesh until flesh comes;
the butcher working
at his block and blade to marry their shapes
by violence and time;
an engine crossing,
re-crossing salt water, hauling
immigrants and the junk
of the poor. These
are the faces I love, the bodies
and scents of bodies
for which I long
in various ways, at various times,
thirteen gathered around the redwood,
happy, talkative, voracious
at day's end,
eager to eat
four kinds of meat
prepared four different ways,
numerous plates and bowls of rice and vegetables,
each made by distinct affections
and brought to table by many hands.

Brothers and sisters by blood and design,
who sit in separate bodies of varied shapes,
we constitute a many-membered
body of love.
In a world of shapes
of my desires, each one here
is a shape of one of my desires, and each
is known to me and dear by virtue
of each one's unique corruption
of those texts, the face, the body:
that jut jaw
to gnash tendon;
that wide nose to meet the blows
a face like that invites;
those long eyes closing on the seen;
those thick lips
to suck the meat of animals
or recite 300 poems of the T'ang;
these teeth to bite my monosyllables;
these cheekbones to make
those syllables sing the soul.
Puffed or sunken
according to the life,
dark or light according
to the birth, straight
or humped, whole, manqué, quasi, each pleases, verging
on utter grotesquery.
All are beautiful by variety.
The soul too
is a debasement
of a text, but, thus, it
acquires salience, although a
human salience, but
inimitable, and, hence, memorable.
God is the text.
The soul is a corruption
and a mnemonic.

A bright moment,
I hold up an old head
from the sea and admire the haughty
down-curved mouth
that seems to disdain
all the eyes are blind to,
including me, the eater.
Whole unto itself, complete
without me, yet its
shape complements the shape of my mind.
I take it as text and evidence
of the world's love for me,
and I feel urged to utterance,
urged to read the body of the world, urged
to say it
in human terms,
my reading a kind of eating, my eating
a kind of reading,
my saying a diminishment, my noise
a love-in-answer.
What is it in me would
devour the world to utter it?
What is it in me will not let
the world be, would eat
not just this fish,
but the one who killed it,
the butcher who cleaned it.
I would eat the way he
squats, the way he
reaches into the plastic tubs
and pulls out a fish, clubs it, takes it
to the sink, guts it, drops it on the weighing pan.
I would eat that thrash
and plunge of the watery body
in the water, that liquid violence
between the man's hands,
I would eat
the gutless twitching on the scales,
three pounds of dumb
nerve and pulse, I would eat it all
to utter it.
The deaths at the sinks, those bodies prepared
for eating, I would eat,
and the standing deaths
at the counters, in the aisles,
the walking deaths in the streets,
the death-far-from-home, the death-
in-a-strange-land, these Chinatown
deaths, these American deaths.
I would devour this race to sing it,
this race that according to Emerson
managed to preserve to a hair
for three or four thousand years
the ugliest features in the world
.
I would eat these features, eat
the last three or four thousand years, every hair.
And I would eat Emerson, his transparent soul, his
soporific transcendence.
I would eat this head,
glazed in pepper-speckled sauce,
the cooked eyes opaque in their sockets.
I bring it to my mouth and--
the way I was taught, the way I've watched
others before me do--
with a stiff tongue lick out
the cheek-meat and the meat
over the armored jaw, my eating,
its sensual, salient nowness,
punctuating the void
from which such hunger springs and to which it proceeds.

And what
is this
I excavate
with my mouth?
What is this
plated, ribbed, hinged
architecture, this carp head,
but one more
articulation of a single nothing
severally manifested?
What is my eating,
rapt as it is,
but another
shape of going,
my immaculate expiration?

O, nothing is so
steadfast it won't go
the way the body goes.
The body goes.
The body's grave,
so serious
in its dying,
arduous as martyrs
in that task and as
glorious. It goes
empty always
and announces its going
by spasms and groans, farts and sweats.

What I thought were the arms
aching cleave, were the knees trembling leave.
What I thought were the muscles
insisting resist, persist, exist,
were the pores
hissing mist and waste.
What I thought was the body humming reside, reside,
was the body sighing revise, revise.
O, the murderous deletions, the keening
down to nothing, the cleaving.
All of the body's revisions end
in death.
All of the body's revisions end.

Bodies eating bodies, heads eating heads,
we are nothing eating nothing,
and though we feast,
are filled, overfilled,
we go famished.
We gang the doors of death.
That is, out deaths are fed
that we may continue our daily dying,
our bodies going
down, while the plates-soon-empty
are passed around, that true
direction of our true prayers,
while the butcher spells
his message, manifold,
in the mortal air.
He coaxes, cleaves, brings change
before our very eyes, and at every
moment of our being.
As we eat we're eaten.
Else what is this
violence, this salt, this
passion, this heaven?

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.

No easy thing, violence.
One of its names? Change. Change
resides in the embrace
of the effaced and the effacer,
in the covenant of the opened and the opener;
the axe accomplishes it on the soul's axis.
What then may I do
but cleave to what cleaves me.
I kiss the blade and eat my meat.
I thank the wielder and receive,
while terror spirits
my change, sorrow also.
The terror the butcher
scripts in the unhealed
air, the sorrow of his Shang
dynasty face,
African face with slit eyes. He is
my sister, this
beautiful Bedouin, this Shulamite,
keeper of sabbaths, diviner
of holy texts, this dark
dancer, this Jew, this Asian, this one
with the Cambodian face, Vietnamese face, this Chinese
I daily face,
this immigrant,
this man with my own face.

Editor 1 Interpretation

The Cleaving: A Masterpiece of Poetic Expression by Li-Young Lee

The Cleaving, written by Li-Young Lee, is a masterpiece of poetic expression that captures the essence of the human experience. Through his beautifully crafted words, Lee explores the themes of love, loss, and the search for identity, all while painting a vivid picture of the world around us. This poem is a prime example of why Lee is considered one of the best poets of our time.

Analysis of the Poem

The Cleaving begins with the speaker describing a moment of great emotional intensity, with the opening line, "In the middle of the night, I woke to find / My father standing beside me." This line immediately draws the reader in, as we are left wondering what the father wants and why he is standing there. The poem then goes on to describe the father's hands, which are "drenched in blood," and the speaker's realization that his father has just killed a chicken. This act of violence is contrasted with the image of the chicken's "soft and feathered body" and the speaker's description of the chicken as "my friend." This juxtaposition of violence and tenderness is a recurring theme throughout the poem.

As the poem progresses, the speaker reflects on the memory of his father killing the chicken, and he begins to see it as a metaphor for the way in which we all must "cleave" ourselves from our past experiences in order to move forward. This idea is expressed in the lines "What is the sound of the cleaving of bone? / What is the taste of meat cleaved from bone?" Here, the act of cleaving is both physical and metaphorical, as it represents the process of separating oneself from the past in order to move on.

The theme of separation is further explored in the second stanza, where the speaker describes his father's journey from China to America. He says that his father "left everything behind" in China, including his family, his language, and his culture. This act of leaving behind is a form of cleaving, and it is one that the speaker himself has experienced as well. He says that he too has "cleaved" himself from his past, abandoning the language and culture of his ancestors in favor of the English language.

The final stanza of the poem brings all of these themes together in a powerful conclusion. The speaker reflects on the inevitability of death, and he says that even in death, we are still "cleaving." He says that our "flesh will cleave from our bones," and that even our memories will "cleave from our bones." But despite this inevitability, the speaker holds on to hope, saying that "perhaps there is another way to cleave, / one that is gentle and kind."

Interpretation of the Poem

The Cleaving is a poem that speaks to the universal human experience of separation and loss. Through the metaphor of cleaving, Lee explores the ways in which we must all separate ourselves from our past experiences in order to move forward. This theme is particularly powerful in the context of immigration, as the speaker's father's journey from China to America is a perfect example of this kind of cleaving.

But the poem goes beyond just the immigrant experience. It speaks to the broader human experience of loss and separation, whether it be through death, the end of a relationship, or simply the passing of time. The metaphor of the chicken being killed is a potent one, as it represents the idea of something being sacrificed in order to move on. This sacrifice is necessary, but it is also painful, as represented by the speaker's description of the chicken as "my friend."

The poem also speaks to the idea of cultural identity and the way in which we must sometimes "cleave" ourselves from our cultural heritage in order to assimilate into a new society. This theme is particularly relevant in today's world, where globalization and immigration have led to a blending of cultures like never before. The speaker's decision to abandon his ancestral language and culture in favor of English is a poignant example of this kind of cleaving.

But despite the pain and sacrifice of cleaving, the poem ultimately ends on a note of hope. The speaker suggests that there may be a "gentle and kind" way to cleave, one that allows us to move on without losing our connection to our past. This idea is a powerful one, as it suggests that while separation and loss are inevitable, there may be a way to embrace them without losing ourselves in the process.

Conclusion

The Cleaving is a poem that speaks to the universal human experience of separation, loss, and the search for identity. Through his masterful use of metaphor and imagery, Li-Young Lee has created a work of art that captures the essence of what it means to be human. This poem is a testament to Lee's skill as a poet and his ability to speak to the deepest parts of the human soul. It is a masterpiece of poetic expression that will continue to resonate with readers for generations to come.

Editor 2 Analysis and Explanation

The Cleaving: A Poem of Love, Loss, and Renewal

Li-Young Lee's poem, The Cleaving, is a masterpiece of modern poetry that explores the themes of love, loss, and renewal. The poem is a deeply personal reflection on the poet's relationship with his father, and the complex emotions that arise from the experience of loss and separation. Through vivid imagery, powerful metaphors, and a lyrical style, Lee captures the essence of the human experience, and the universal struggle to find meaning and purpose in life.

The poem begins with a powerful image of a father and son working together to split wood. The act of cleaving, or splitting, becomes a metaphor for the relationship between the two men, as well as for the larger themes of the poem. The father is described as "the man with the maul," a powerful figure who wields the tool with ease and skill. The son, on the other hand, is "the boy with the wedge," a less experienced and less confident figure who struggles to keep up with his father's pace.

The image of the two men working together is a powerful one, as it captures the essence of the father-son relationship. The father is the dominant figure, the one who teaches and guides his son, while the son is the eager apprentice, eager to learn and to please his father. The act of cleaving becomes a metaphor for the process of learning and growth, as the son learns from his father and becomes more skilled and confident over time.

However, the poem takes a darker turn as the father becomes ill and eventually dies. The son is left to grieve and to come to terms with his loss, and the act of cleaving takes on a new meaning. No longer is it a symbol of growth and learning, but rather a symbol of separation and loss. The son is left to cleave alone, without his father's guidance and support, and the act becomes a painful reminder of what has been lost.

The poem is filled with powerful images and metaphors that capture the complexity of the human experience. The image of the father's hands, for example, is a powerful one that recurs throughout the poem. The hands are described as "hard as a knot," a symbol of the father's strength and resilience. They are also described as "gentle as a prayer," a symbol of the father's love and compassion. The hands become a symbol of the father himself, and of the son's deep connection to him.

The poem also explores the theme of renewal, as the son comes to terms with his loss and begins to find meaning and purpose in his life. The image of the son planting a tree is a powerful one, as it symbolizes the process of growth and renewal. The son is no longer the boy with the wedge, but rather a mature and confident man who is able to find his own path in life. The act of planting a tree becomes a symbol of hope and renewal, as the son looks to the future with optimism and determination.

In conclusion, The Cleaving is a powerful and deeply personal poem that explores the themes of love, loss, and renewal. Through vivid imagery, powerful metaphors, and a lyrical style, Li-Young Lee captures the essence of the human experience, and the universal struggle to find meaning and purpose in life. The poem is a testament to the power of poetry to capture the complexity of the human experience, and to provide a source of comfort and inspiration in times of loss and grief.

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