Eating Together - Li-Young Lee

EATING TOGETHER



In the steamer is the trout
seasoned with slivers of ginger,
two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil.
We shall eat it with rice for lunch,
brothers, sister, my mother who will
taste the sweetest meat of the head,
holding it between her fingers
deftly, the way my father did
weeks ago. Then he lay down
to sleep like a snow-covered road
winding through pines older than him,
without any travelers, and lonely for no one.

---Li-Young Lee



Li-Young Lee's Eating Together


I find it interesting to look at this poem with Li-Young Lee's Eating Alone. They are clearly different poems, and yet I feel, in some ways, they serve as companion pieces. We get the struggle of loneliness and loss full force in Eating Alone, while Eating Together has slivers of compassion and the family dynamic. Strangely enough, Eating Together is the poem that proves the necessity of sharing meals with others; the family gathers to eat in the aftermath of losing their patriarch. Lee's father, who we already know a good deal about from Eating Alone, makes more than a ghostly cameo in this poem. He is the powerful figure influencing their dining habits even after he's left the earth. That's a sure sign of someone who has left an impact!

“In the steamer is the trout / seasoned with slivers of ginger, / two sprigs of green onion, and sesame oil. / We shall eat it with rice for lunch.” Well okay, Li-Young Lee has me hungry, anyone else? It's a straightforward description of a delicious meal. In reading these lines I can sense the precision in the food preparation. The exact number of sprigs of green onions, the carefully sliced slivers of ginger, the washed and cleaned trout. I also enjoy how Lee strongly calls us to the table: “We shall eat it with rice for lunch.” It's matter-of-fact and invites no questions, almost a father would say to his picky children. And who is being called to lunch? “Brothers, sister, my mother who will / taste the sweetest meat of the head.” Lee doesn't use fanciful adjectives or drawn-out phrases, but he still supplies readers with a clear picture of his family. We know there are a good amount of men in the family, as well as a lone sister. We know the hierarchy of the family, with the mother finding the sweetest meat, the most prized part of the meal, on her plate. And when she eats this meat the poem's hidden subject is revealed: her husband, the children's recently deceased father.

It is in the way that the mother eats her food that she invokes memories of her husband. “Holding it between her fingers / deftly, the way my father did / weeks ago.” Some people say that over time husbands and wives start to dress alike and they even start to look alike; maybe they start to eat alike as well. Lee has already shown us in his other poems that the littlest things can trigger much grander memories. His mother's eating habits are the launching pad for confronting the reality of the situation. They are gathered, as a family, to share a meal for one of the first times without an integral member of their family. In his absence they see his immense impact on themselves. Lee is careful not to go down that sentimental road, instead he steers the poem directly toward the father and away from his surviving family members. When Lee writes, “Then he lay down / to sleep like a snow-covered road / winding through pines older than him, / without any travelers, and lonely for no one,” he is giving his father a poetic burial, a eulogy that guides him through peaceful images to a final resting place. Certainly it is heartbreaking, and yet I can't help but see the blatant love in these lines. It is a love that sprouts from simple roots, just as the food they are sitting down to eat arrived on their plates. And this love was fostered in moments like the one they are sharing in this poem: all of them gathered together to eat and talk, to capture their days and commemorate the people and times they have lost.