<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-style: normal;" class="">Notes on the Below</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><br class=""></em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""><em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">—For Mammoth Cave National Park</em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Humongous cavern, tell me, wet limestone, sandstone caprock,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> bat-wing, sightless translucent cave shrimp,</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">this endless plummet into more of the unknown,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> how one keeps secrets for so long.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">All my life, I’ve lived above the ground,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> car wheels over paved roads, roots breaking through concrete,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">and still I’ve not understood the reel of this life’s purpose.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Not so much living, but a hovering without sense.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">What’s it like to be always night? No moon, but a few lit up<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> circles at your many openings. Endless dark, still time<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">must enter you. Like a train, like a green river?</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Tell me what it is to be the thing rooted in shadow.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> To be the thing not touched by light (no that’s not it)<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">to not even need the light? I envy; I envy that.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">Desire is a tricky thing, the boiling of the body’s wants,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> more praise, more hands holding the knives away.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">I’ve been the one who has craved and craved until I could not see<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> beyond my own greed. There’s a whole nation of us.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">To forgive myself, I point to the earth as witness.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">To you, your Frozen Niagara, your Fat Man’s Misery,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> you with your 400 miles of interlocking caves that lead<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">only to more of you, tell me,</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">what it is to be quiet, and yet still breathing.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class=""> Ruler of the Underlying, let me<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">speak to both the dead and the living as you do. Speak<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">to the ruined earth, the stalactites, the eastern small-footed bat,</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">to honor this: the length of days. To speak to the core<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""> that creates and swallows, to speak not always to what’s<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">shouting, but to what’s underneath asking for nothing.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 1rem; color: rgb(52, 52, 52); font-size: 17.6px; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial;" class="">I am at the mouth of the cave. I am willing to crawl.</p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Ada Limón</div></div></body></html>