Ada Limón, 24th US Poet Laureate, edited and introduced a collection of poems called You are Here. All of them are on that same theme, though interpreted uniquely by each writer. It’s rather wild that I featured the phrase in the talk I just wrote for the Grade 12s next door without knowing about the book—though Startlement, a collection of her other work, has been in my bag for a while now.

Anyway, reading the intro and some of the included pieces called me to the keyboard to write my own You are Here…

You are Here

The red dot on a map,
worn with being a reference
pointing out placement,
is only one Here.
My body, my imagination,
my mind, spirit, desire—
each also a Here,
somehow always a Here
rather than There.
Here is an overlapping,
a sum or accumulation
of places that meet in Me;
Me more than a red dot, me
being, me horizon, me
the mingling moment
when the celestial delta
of stars meets the tidal waters
of morning and journey and home.

Kimberly M. King