“Calling Things What They Are” - Ada Limón
Spring transformed my birdfeeder into a marvel: molted finches, two bluebirds-in-residence, a cardinal peeking from the pines.
My son internalizes my fascination. Every morning he checks on his “friends,” smudging the window with kisses. One of his first words? “CHICK-a-dee.”
The first ¾ of Limón’s poem describes the gift of noticing - that transformation from “Blah blah blah bird” to a nuanced awareness of nature’s rotation around and beyond us (“Grackle party!...Tufted titmouse!”).
But the last ¼ of the poem (beginning “Before, the only thing I was interested in was love…”) stuns me.
The love Limón was originally interested in, the last line reveals, was not love at all – it was her “own suffering.” What she called love was really “pain.” This misnaming of emotion stands in stark contrast with her naming of the birds.
In part, this poem is an act of revision – a call to emotional honesty during which Limón-the-poet acknowledges the truth of a past emotion. But by acknowledging the emotion as pain, Limón leaves “love” undefined, inviting us to seek an implicit definition within her lines.
There are 2 types of clues: a discussion of what love is not (final ¼) and a discussion of what naming birds is (first ¾). Somewhere in the overlap we can find an answer:
Love-that-isn’t-love
▫️”grips you”
▫️”terrifies you”
▫️”annihilates and resuscitates you”
Birds
▫️Exist in parallel
▫️Must be engaged on their own terms
▫️Require patience to understand (the art of watching… with binoculars, photo 5)
Love-that-is-pain leaves no SPACE between lovers. It is invasive and all-consuming. Bird watching (and tree identification) thrives WITHIN the space between an admired Other and the Self.
Growing up, I thought “understanding” the pinnacle of intimacy, synonymous with “connection.” I wanted a perfect union of mind and soul. But Limón captures the profound intimacy of difference. Space makes it possible not just to honor but revel in the particularity of the Other. Which also makes it possible to be loved as one’s unique Self.
Love doesn’t bind us tight; it fills the space between.
