24th US Poet Laureate ADA LIMÓN on Memory, Wonder & Listening to the Living World - Highlights

And so I think that sometimes when we move in whatever natural landscape, if it's the natural landscape of a city, if it's the natural world of, you know, trees and lakes and rivers, it's listening.

It's being comfortable with the receiving and being quiet.

You know, I used to think that I was just going to move through the world with my headphones in, 'cause I always want to listen to music or an audiobook or something, and now I don't do it at all.

When I walk, I do not have headphones in.

I don't make a call.

I don't...

I just listen.

I just receive.

To be comfortable with silence that, as you said earlier, is not silence.

To be comfortable with silence that isn't silence, but the music of the world.

The thought of the little self who I was when I first made my first steps, when I first read a word, when I first learned how to read, all of those things were here.

And so I moved into this house when I was six months old, so this is the place of memory for me.

I can feel my little self in this room, and I remember so well spending hot summer days inside with the fan on, reading and trying to figure out the language for songs that I was gonna make up for my dog.

It's not something you move past.

I keep thinking about the idea of growth, and you mentioned the mother tree, which is so beautifully said, and I keep thinking about how as we grow up, right, grow older, and we, we think of growing wiser, and we, we think of forward momentum.

And what I'm finding here is the deepening of the root systems, so that all that forward momentum might be happening, but at the same time, the roots are going further and farther to stabilize and to reach out, and they're happening at the same time.

It's not one or the other.

It's not, "Oh, I look back," or, "I look forward." It's that the simultaneity of this moment is creating this really rich present that is new for me, and I'm, I'm, I'm really delighting in it, and s- and sometimes I'm overwhelmed by it.

And so I think that sometimes when we move in whatever natural landscape, if it's the natural landscape of a city, if it's the natural world of, you know, trees and lakes and rivers, it's listening.

It's being comfortable with the receiving and being quiet.

You know, I used to think that I was just going to move through the world with my headphones in, 'cause I always want to listen to music or an audiobook or something, and now I don't do it at all.

When I walk, I do not have headphones in.

I don't make a call.

I don't...

I just listen.

I just receive.

To be comfortable with silence that, as you said earlier, is not silence.

To be comfortable with silence that isn't silence, but the music of the world.

The thought of the little self who I was when I first made my first steps, when I first read a word, when I first learned how to read, all of those things were here.

And so I moved into this house when I was six months old, so this is the place of memory for me.

I can feel my little self in this room, and I remember so well spending hot summer days inside with the fan on, reading and trying to figure out the language for songs that I was gonna make up for my dog.

It's not something you move past.

I keep thinking about the idea of growth, and you mentioned the mother tree, which is so beautifully said, and I keep thinking about how as we grow up, right, grow older, and we, we think of growing wiser, and we, we think of forward momentum.

And what I'm finding here is the deepening of the root systems, so that all that forward momentum might be happening, but at the same time, the roots are going further and farther to stabilize and to reach out, and they're happening at the same time.

It's not one or the other.

It's not, "Oh, I look back," or, "I look forward." It's that the simultaneity of this moment is creating this really rich present that is new for me, and I'm, I'm, I'm really delighting in it, and s- and sometimes I'm overwhelmed by it.