You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World

by Ada Limon

What do you mean the wind is not alive? Look at the way it courts the shy juniper. Can’t you see its reliable visits every afternoon? Its secure attachment style to its own wet and thunderous passions? Let’s go be alive like that,

For months all I’ve wanted is the blessing of an open window.

My son forgot he could not swim, then emerged tall as laughter, hidden as the lesson in a song. He forgot how to tie his shoes then learned how to draw a face and tie it to a string and run far off into the place only he could go. I chased him but he just grew larger.

I’d be lost without that part of you that eases up enough to let me in. Then closes back around me.