Ada Limon

“All night I dreamt of bonfires and burn piles and ghosts of men, and spirits behind those birds of flame. I cannot tell anymore when a door opens or closes, I can only hear the frame saying, Walk through.”

“I'm thirty-five and remember all that I've done wrong.”

“There are so many people who’ve come before us,arrows and wagon wheels, obsidian tools, buffalo.Look out at the meadow, you can almost see them,generations dissolved in the bluegrass and hay.I want to try and be terrific. Even for an hour.”

“People have done this before, but not us.”

“If we could light up the room with pain, we’d be such a glorious fire.”

“What I didn't like was how people talked to menow that I was no longer single; they were nicer.Men who never looked at me would start up a conversation,like I was suddenly some safer form of fire.”

“I am not obsessing.I am just sitting hereperforating this post-itwith a push-pin.”