I read this in one sitting because I was so enthralled. However, I also felt like these poems were all the same mood and carried the same themes, so I worried if I set them down and picked them back up later I would feel like I was repeating something I’d already read.

Limón’s experiences growing up with and relating with the natural world around her bursts forth from every poem. There is a vibrating frustration with humankind’s insistence on dominating the natural world. In some selections, the frustration is enough to punch through the crust like a geyser, but it eventually settles, leaving the reader off balance and unable to predict the next outburst.

Limón also writes about being raised in two households and being split between a birth father and a step father, I can’t help but wonder if the erratic frustrations of her poetry are reflecting the juxtaposition of her two childhood homes.

She describes flora and fauna with such skill and ease that it makes the reader feel like they aren’t connected enough with the world around them. I found myself marveling at her descriptions of the different birds that would come to the bird feeder, the blooming flowers and blossoming trees that she seems to always be surrounded by, and the series of critters and other fauna in which she finds her own self reflected back at her. This collection made me want to run out to the woods, to the meadows and streams, and whisper to the natural world around me, “I see you. I cherish you. I’ll protect you.”