Ada Limón came with me on retreat today. I read several of her pieces from the collection Startlement this morning while parked in an Adirondack chair outside an as yet closed Block Shop Books in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. While steeping in her verse, a handful of tourists who came by learned of the store’s hours by my being there and also got steered toward excellent coffee next door at No.9. That engagement, as well as much else in my day, seemed to go with a line that I starred in pencil and added to my notebook:

You say you love the world, so love the world. —Ada Limón from ‘The Same thing’

Acts of Love

Paying attention to the couple
who are coming downhill,
clearly listing toward your perch,
and offering the hours
of the bookshop
currently providing you
with a viewing point and shade;
Writing it down when you learn
that the birds you saw gathered,
long tails pitched upward,
was the Eastern Towhee;
And also, mapping in sentences
the syllables of a path you know
with the full complement of senses:
The artistry of sunlight seen
through stencils of old knobby branches;
the funk of a stagnant water ballroom
topped with pairs of gerridae
filling in their dance cards;
a riotous assembly of dandelions
where the rolling crunch of gravel
changes to the slick squish of
wet grass and earth;
the overwhelm of lilacs just before
the wind off the water comes
in and over, surrounding you
in a baptism of salt and freshness,
calling you to turn, to look out,
to take in, to love.

Kimberly M. King