What Is Handed Down by Ada Limón

31 Days of Poems: Day Two.

For the month of August I’ll be participating in The Sealey Challenge and attempting to read a book of poetry every day, and every day I’ll be sharing a poem with you. The 2nd of August’s offering is ‘What Is Handed Down’ by Ada Limón, taken from her 2022 collection, The Hurting Kind.

This edition was published in the UK by Corsair Poetry.

What Is Handed Down

Smoke and sweat seeped through
your waiter's vest, and nights off you'd play
the harmonica on the rooftop, a man made
out of netting and wire with an unexpected
tenor, made of push-ups and the sound
of typewriter keys, eight-tracks and knowing
all the lyrics to all the songs. I thought you were
a celebrity, the way people shouted your name
when we walked through the plaza. Even as a child,
I noticed your gentle way of fixing. The first time
I saw it, it felt like a trick. The spider plant I killed
because I didn't care enough about lives other than
my own was soaked in the apartment sink until
it came back to life. My mother's clock radio you took
apart and put back together good as new, though
the war had made it so you couldn't hear
the high notes. It's selfish, I know, but I want to be
the fixer now. Show me how you did it, all those years,
took something that needed repair and repaired it.

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Do you give much thought to how you’ll be remembered when you’re no longer here, or even how you’re considered when you are?

It’s a fact easily forgotten that, with every person we love, there is a limit to the number of memories we can make, questions we can ask, behaviours we can observe, images we can store. However, if we’re lucky enough, our thoughts and memories of them are made up of precious details that we lovingly recall and desperately desire to emulate.

Of course, there’s no replacing the irreplaceable. But what an honour it is that anyone should want to inherit from you or consider your shoes worth filling; what a gift it is to be remembered and remembered well.

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