Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm David Kern, and today is Friday, May 26, 2023.

Today's poem is by an American poet named Ursula K. Le Guin. She was best known probably for her science

fiction, including the Earth Sea Fantasy series.

But she wrote a number of poems as well, and a whole new collection of her work has actually,

specifically her poetry, has actually come out recently from Library of America.

I discovered this poem in Alan Jacobs' newsletter. Alan Jacobs is himself a great writer,

and he shared this poem that I'm about to read to you, as well as a link to a wonderful interview

with a podcaster and Ursula Le Guin expert named David Naiman. He points out that this is a poem from her last collection,

which was called So Far So Good.

It's called Leaves. It's not very long.

So I'll read it once, share a few comments,

mostly from Naiman's interview about Le Guin,

and then read it one more time.

So again, this is Leaves by Ursula K. Le Guin.

Years do odd things to identity.

What does it mean to say, I am that child in the photograph at Kishamish in 1935?

Might as well say, I am the shadow of a leaf of the acacia tree felled 70 years ago,

moving on the page the child reads.

Might as well say, I am the words she read or the words I wrote in other years,

flicker of shade and sunlight as the wind moves through the trees.

I mentioned a second ago David Naiman.

He is the host of a podcast called Between the Covers, and they did a series last year called

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