Trying
I’d forgotten how much
I like to grow things, I shout
to him as he passes me to paint
the basement. I’m trellising
the tomatoes in what’s called
a Florida weave. Later, we try
to knock me up again. We do it
in the guest room because that’s
the extent of our adventurism
in a week of violence in Florida
and France. Afterward,
the sun still strong though lowering
inevitable to the horizon, I check
on the plants in the back, my
fingers smelling of sex and tomato
vines. Even now, I don’t know much
about happiness. I still worry
and want an endless stream of more,
but some days I can see the point
in growing something, even if
it’s just to say I cared enough.
This poem is excerpted from Leaning Toward Light: Poems for Gardens and the Hands That Tend Them (Storey Publishing, 2023), edited by Tess Taylor, a beautiful poetry anthology offering a warm, inviting selection of poems from a wide range of voices that speak to the collective urge to grow, tend, and heal—an evocative celebration of our connection to the green world.
This is the fifth of five poems from the anthology reprinted in Terrain.org over the first week of September 2023. As an introduction to the poems, read Tess Taylor’s “Poems and Gardens as Kind Companions”.
This poem is reprinted by permission of the editor and publisher.
Ada Limón is the author of six books of poetry, including The Carrying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry in 2019. She is also the host of the critically acclaimed poetry podcast The Slowdown. Her most recent book of poems is The Hurting Kind (Milkweed Editions, 2022).
Header image by Melissa Castrillón, from Leaning Toward Light. Photo of Ada Limón by Lucas Marquardt.
