I Ask My Mother To Sing Poem by Li-Young Lee

I Ask My Mother To Sing

Rating: 3.9


She begins, and my grandmother joins her.
Mother and daughter sing like young girls.
If my father were alive, he would play
his accordion and sway like a boat.

I've never been in Peking, or the Summer Palace,
nor stood on the great Stone Boat to watch
the rain begin on Kuen Ming Lake, the picnickers
running away in the grass.

But I love to hear it sung;
how the waterlilies fill with rain until
they overturn, spilling water into water,
then rock back, and fill with more,

Both women have begun to cry.
But neither stops her song.

I Ask My Mother To Sing
COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Ahkam Qazi 13 February 2008

wow what a beautiful rhyming, what a sweet thought.

15 24 Reply
Michael Morgan 31 August 2015

Like it should be MM

4 3 Reply
Liza Sudina 17 October 2015

love poems about family music! lovely!

3 4 Reply
Walterrean Salley 23 November 2016

(I Ask My Mother To Sing by Li-Young Lee.) **Beautiful nostalgic memories. The finer moments of life.

5 1 Reply
shay 05 July 2022

wow butifull poem

0 1 Reply
shay 05 July 2022

can you gies help me look for some sensery detals

0 1 Reply
Bijay Kant Dubey 28 October 2018

In the singing of mother and grandmother, it can be marked the longing for their home which it is in China. The poet too wants to be there. Homesickness and nostalgia pervade the poetic spirit of he poem.

5 0 Reply
Karen Harvey 10 February 2018

Absolutely beautiful.

4 1 Reply
Jeannette Heywood 01 March 2017

Simply lovely and colourful.

4 2 Reply
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