Scan barcode
A review by percystjoan
Sharks in the Rivers by Ada Limón
5.0
ada limon: being hit over the head with the blunt force of all the beauty and love the world has to offer
rescue animals
Round the mountain and we’ve entered
a no-man’s-land of earthward and fallen.
Barn owls wake the sky and set the world
bursting, white-faced and beating. Your
cold hands carry the flashlight, and mine
the key, always the key, for safekeeping.
I’m telling you about the animals: the egret,
the goat my mother rescued, the orphan
goose, the blind quarter horse, the bullfrogs,
and you’re watching where we’re stepping
so carefully, so seriously. I’m pointing out some
stone I love and I know I sound ridiculous,
my voice like too-loud chimes in a windstorm.
Your head is bowed and all your life
you’ve wanted to know some place like this
existed and, for a moment, your lost face
belongs in the barn, rushed in from the city’s
traffic-hounded concrete, limping here
out of wounded whimper. So, I keep you—
lost and found—surrounded by the sweet
barbed wire of tumbled limbs until you are
tough enough to kick through the gate, break it,
knock over the water trough and go mean-wild again.
I think I’ve been standing in the barn door
for days, or perhaps for one long year,
filling the still-full food bowl and leaving the stall
piled with blankets, but tonight I want you
never to return. Tonight, I miss only those
stones I owned, that long cold walk in the dark
when no one’s watching, when no one needs
to force my footstep further—or even
hold me back from falling.
big star
Because there is so little time,
she sets her watch back, for more of everything.
Unbounded hunger for the tug of the living tree,
have mercy for this moment between fences.
She does not know how to stay unfolded
for too long in this absolute pounding. She says,
Big star, big star, bold in its opening,
bowled over in its oneness, she says, This is the same
hand I use for fetching what I fear, and now
I am pointing to you.
[also: flood coming, high water, not enough, overjoyed, crush, the russian river, the crossing, ways to ease your animal mind, the commute, the same thing, fifteen balls of feathers, bird bound for a good world, sting, drowning in paradise, to the busted among us, and world versus girl.]
rescue animals
Round the mountain and we’ve entered
a no-man’s-land of earthward and fallen.
Barn owls wake the sky and set the world
bursting, white-faced and beating. Your
cold hands carry the flashlight, and mine
the key, always the key, for safekeeping.
I’m telling you about the animals: the egret,
the goat my mother rescued, the orphan
goose, the blind quarter horse, the bullfrogs,
and you’re watching where we’re stepping
so carefully, so seriously. I’m pointing out some
stone I love and I know I sound ridiculous,
my voice like too-loud chimes in a windstorm.
Your head is bowed and all your life
you’ve wanted to know some place like this
existed and, for a moment, your lost face
belongs in the barn, rushed in from the city’s
traffic-hounded concrete, limping here
out of wounded whimper. So, I keep you—
lost and found—surrounded by the sweet
barbed wire of tumbled limbs until you are
tough enough to kick through the gate, break it,
knock over the water trough and go mean-wild again.
I think I’ve been standing in the barn door
for days, or perhaps for one long year,
filling the still-full food bowl and leaving the stall
piled with blankets, but tonight I want you
never to return. Tonight, I miss only those
stones I owned, that long cold walk in the dark
when no one’s watching, when no one needs
to force my footstep further—or even
hold me back from falling.
big star
Because there is so little time,
she sets her watch back, for more of everything.
Unbounded hunger for the tug of the living tree,
have mercy for this moment between fences.
She does not know how to stay unfolded
for too long in this absolute pounding. She says,
Big star, big star, bold in its opening,
bowled over in its oneness, she says, This is the same
hand I use for fetching what I fear, and now
I am pointing to you.
[also: flood coming, high water, not enough, overjoyed, crush, the russian river, the crossing, ways to ease your animal mind, the commute, the same thing, fifteen balls of feathers, bird bound for a good world, sting, drowning in paradise, to the busted among us, and world versus girl.]