The Carrying: Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry

by Ada Limon

My god, I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel that I never got wet.

What I can’t get over is something simple, easy: How could a dandelion seed head seemingly grow overnight? A neighbor mows the lawn and bam, the next morning, there’s a hundred dandelion seed heads straight as arrows and proud as cats high above any green blade of manicured grass.

We point out the stars that make Orion as we take out the trash, the rolling containers a song of suburban thunder. It’s almost romantic as we adjust the waxy blue recycling bin until you say, Man, we should really learn some new constellations.

it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me.

Would You Rather have fiery lasers that shoot out of your eyes, or eat sundaes with whip cream for every meal?

You ever think you could cry so hard that there’d be nothing left in you, like how the wind shakes a tree in a storm until every part of it is run through with wind?