The Carrying by Ada Limón

Author:Ada Limón
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 2018-08-09T00:00:00+00:00

and the bees were big and round and buzzing.

OF ROOTS & ROAMERS

Have you ever noticed how the trees

change from state to state? Not all

at once, of course, more like a weaver

gradually weaving in another color

until the old trees become scarce

and new trees offer a shaded kingdom

all their own. Before I knew the names

of towns or roads, I could recognize

places by the trees: Northern California’s

smooth-skinned madrone, looming eucalyptus,

fuzzy fragrant flowers of the acacia. So

much of America belongs to the trees.

Even when we can’t agree on much,

there’s still the man returning from his

late shift at the local bar, who takes

a long look at the bird’s nest in the maple,

pats the trunk like a friend’s forearm,

mumbles something about staying safe,

and returns home. And the girl whose

slapdash tree fort we can see from our blurry

window, how she stands there to wave

at a world she does not even know

the half of yet. My grandmother once

complained she couldn’t see much

of America on her cross-country trip because

it was all just trees. Ask her, she’ll laugh as she

tells you. Still, without the bother of licenses

or attention to a state line, a border, they

just grow where they’ve grown all their lives:

there, a small stand of white pine arrives,

there, a redwood begins to show itself along

the coastline, water oaks in the south, willows.

Their power is in not moving, so we must

move to them.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.