Found Poetry: Ada Limón’s ‘The Hurting Kind’
All words from Ada Limón’s “The Hurting Kind,” the poetry collection I steeped in for November. Limón is the current U.S. poet laureate.
Sing as if nothing were wrong.
I used to like the darkest stories—
a ghost, pallid bats.
(They do not care to be seen as symbols.)
It’s the season of kestrel eyes
on the same team, united against a common enemy.
But I do not want to kill that longing woman in me,
La Llorona, the hurting kind, too sensitive. A foal,
hoof first. Birds for leaves, and leaves for birds.
I began to learn the names of trees stuck
in rattlesnake grass.
We haven’t done this before, as if
it was easy for the world to make flowers.
The runaway child, so overly loved—
forsythia, forsythia, more yellow.
More yellow.
–Megan Willome
I loved this book. As soon as I finished, I began reading it again.”
—David Lee Garrison, author of Playing Bach in the D. C. Metro
