Enough of osseous and chickadee and sunflower
and snowshoes, maple and seeds, samara and shoot,
enough chiaroscuro, enough of thus and prophecy
and the stoic farmer and faith and our father and tis
of thee, enough of bosom and bud, skin and god
not forgetting and star bodies and frozen birds,
enough of the will to go on and not go on or how
a certain light does a certain thing, enough
of the kneeling and the rising and the looking
inward and the looking up, enough of the gun,
the drama, and the acquaintance’s suicide, the long-lost
letter on the dresser, enough of the longing and
the ego and the obliteration of ego, enough
of the mother and the child and the father and the child
and enough of the pointing to the world, weary
and desperate, enough of the brutal and the border,
enough of can you see me, can you hear me, enough
I am human, enough I am alone and I am desperate,
enough of the animal saving me, enough of the high
water, enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease,
I am asking you to touch me.
Ada Limón (b. 1976) b. Sonoma, CA. Earned MFA from New York University. Author of six poetry collections, including The Carrying (2018), which won a National Book Critics Circle Award. Hosted poetry podcast The Slowdown, September 2021–October 2022. Her many awards include a MacArthur fellowship. Appointed Poet Laureate of the United States in 2022. One of her poems will be engraved on NASA’s Europa Clipper Spacecraft, scheduled to be launched in October 2024.