Dead Stars

“Dead Stars” opens with a five-line stanza, or quintain, that introduces a contemplative tone with an emphasis on the natural world. The speaker notes that trees, despite their sturdiness and strength, bow; winter is personified with a harsh, omnipresent hand: “Out here, there’s a bowing even the trees are doing. / Winter’s icy hand at the back of all of us” (Lines 1-2). Limón imbues nature with vivid details and significance. The remaining lines of the stanza build the dramatic tone of the poem, creating a sense of eerie stillness. Nature is in a dead state, making the speaker feel displaced from the present: “Black bar, slick yellow leaves, a kind of stillness / that feels / so mute it’s almost in another year” (Lines 3-5). The lines comprise one complete sentence, but creative spacing—like indenting Line 4—slow the rhythm of the poem, enhancing the cool and contemplative tone.

The next stanza is a single line. Where the first stanza found the speaker looking outward, here, they turn inward, and the tone remains dramatic: “I am a hearth of spiders these days: a nest of trying” (Line 6). Describing themselves as a hearth of spiders maintains an emphasis on the natural world, connecting the speaker to their setting, even when introspective. The image created by the hearth of spiders is distinct and dark, but the speaker clarifies that they are a nest of trying, creating a sense of hope despite the frightening imagery.

The third stanza expands the scope of the poem by adding a new character and enhancing the setting. Now that the natural world and the speaker have been established, Limón brings in another character who stands beside the first speaker. First-person plural is employed, and the setting becomes more defined (a suburb): “We point out the stars that make Orion as we take / out / the trash, the rolling containers a song of / suburban thunder” (Lines 7-10). Placing the speaker with another character and giving them numerous actions to perform--like taking out the trash and observing the sky--grounds the poem in the real world and gives the lines momentum. The images and thoughts become a fully realized scene propelling forward the rest of the poem.

The speaker and the other individual further interact in the fourth stanza, a quatrain, adding humor to the tone of the poem. Despite the cold weather and dead trees, the night sky creates a sense of romance for the speaker, until the second character’s comment disrupts the mood: “It’s almost romantic as we adjust the waxy blue / recycling bin until you say, Man, we should / really learn / some new constellations” (Lines 11-14). Here, the speaker appreciates the simple actions of every day contemporary life—like taking out the trash and looking up at the stars—but the humorous disruption shows how hard it can be in the modern world to find an apt moment to appreciate the stars and constellations with another person.

Although the second speaker breaks the mood previously established in the poem, the speaker finds truth in their statement in the three-line fifth stanza. Thinking about constellations, they acknowledge how many are constantly forgotten: “And it’s true. We keep forgetting about Antlia, / Centaurus, / Draco, Lacerta, Hydra, Lyra, Lynx” (Lines 15-17). Limón names seven constellations and utilizes line breaks to lengthen the time it takes to read them, enhancing the sense of loss from forgetting constellations and the myths associated with them. In the present, humans are disconnected from the natural world, as well as their own history, and these two things are intertwined.

The sixth stanza is also three-lines long--a tercet. Here, the speaker again looks inward at themselves and the rest of humanity. People have forgotten how connected they are to the rest of existence, that they come from particles and energy that existed before they did: “But mostly we’re forgetting we’re dead stars too, my / mouth is full / of dust and I wish to reclaim the rising—” (Lines 18-20). The speaker wants to reclaim that sense of connectedness, developing Limón’s thematic message that people should embrace a deep connection with the natural world. Unlike previous stanzas, the sixth doesn’t end with a period, but a dash, creating suspense and drama moving into the next stanza.

The seventh stanza continues the thought of the sixth. The four lines complete the sentence started in the previous stanza and shifts the tone of the poem toward something more hopeful: “to lean in the spotlight of streetlight with you, / toward / what’s larger within us, toward how we were / born” (Lines 21-24). Previously, the person beside the speaker ruined the romance of their stargazing, but the speaker brushes that aside. They want to stand still with their companion and channel the great vastness dwelling inside them. Images like spotlights, streetlights, and birth create a contrast to the stark, dead imagery in the opening of the poem. As the poem moves through its second half, it changes from darkness to light, from death to birth.

The eighth stanza, a couplet, retains the poem’s newfound message of hope and continues to create a propulsive pace. The speaker recognizes the resilience of humanity and begins to form a question about the future: “Look, we are not unspectacular things. / We’ve come this far, survived this much” (Lines 25-26). Whereas previous stanzas, like the fifth, emphasized humankind's forgetfulness, the eighth emphasizes their strength as a species and paints people as spectacular. Like the sixth stanza, Limón ends the eighth incomplete, creating a sense of urgency moving into the proceeding lines.

The ninth stanza is another couplet and directly proposes questions to the reader. Retaining the admiration and wonder for humanity established in the previous stanza, Limón asks, “What / would happen if we decided to survive more? / To love harder?” (Lines 26-28) The phrasing, survive more, is creative and unique. For Limón, both the way people survived in the past and the way they currently survive is not enough. Survival can evolve. Loving harder is distinct, too, implying a fierce action. As Limón creates a message calling for greater empathy, she imbues valued tenets—like survival and love—with more power.

Limón's tenth stanza is a tercet which heightens the poem’s call for resilience. Even against formidable forces, the speaker encourages the reader to be defiant: “What if we stood up with our synapses and flesh and / said, No. / No, to the rising tides” (Lines 29-31). The usage of synapses and flesh ground the speaker and the reader in their bodies, emphasizing their relationship with the rest of the world--a central message of the poem. Line 30, “said, No,” encourages the reader to linger on the meaning of those words, emphasizing humanity’s ability to resist negative changes occurring in the world.

The eleventh stanza continues the tone and message of the tenth. Limón further develops her commentary on people’s ability to resist negative change. The speaker asks the reader not to stand up just for themselves, but the world at large: “Stood for the many mute mouths of the sea, of the / land?” (Lines 32-33) By breaking the question into a couplet, the rhythm of the poem slows on a single word, "land," which maintains the poem’s naturalistic quality and again invites the reader to dwell on the natural world and consider what they can do to help it thrive.

The twelfth stanza follows the same structure as the eleventh. Written as a couplet, it ends with a single word on the second line, proposing another question to the reader, one that puts even more responsibility in their hands: “What would happen if we used our bodies to / bargain” (Lines 34-35). The thought is incomplete, maintaining the quickened pace established for the second half of the poem, and the fragmented sentence forces the reader to linger, further considering what they can do as a human to bargain for the parts of the earth that cannot speak.

In the thirteenth stanza, Limón writes a tercet, further envisioning a future with hopeful possibility. The speaker foresees a time where everyone and everything is safe, where people do not fear one another: “for the safety of others, for earth, / if we declared a clean night, if we stopped / being terrified” (Lines 36-38). The speaker doesn’t see this clean and safe night as guaranteed, but asks the reader to envision it, solidifying the poem’s hopeful—but not idealistic or sentimental—tone. The thirteenth stanza is a continuation of the sentence started in the twelfth, but it is still incomplete, propelling the reader forward.

The fourteenth stanza is another fragment of the sentence started in the twelfth stanza. It doesn’t complete the sentence, but visually, it begins to tie the final stanzas into the earlier ones, connecting with imagery of the sky: “[I]f we launched our demands into the sky, made / ourselves so big / people could point to us with the arrows they make / in their minds” (Lines 39-42). Here, the speaker imagines hope and resilience as being so powerful they leave signs in the sky in the form of new constellations. Previous stanzas lamented forgotten constellations and myths, but the final stanzas give hope for the future, and propose new constellations based on empathy for all living things.

The fifteenth and final stanza is a single line and completes the sentence started in the twelfth stanza. The speaker returns to the suburbs, wondering if that hopeful future is possible, and if it can replace the fearful times they currently live in: “rolling their trash bins out, after all of this is over?” (Line 43) The poem ends imagining the next generation performing the same tasks as people now do, but with new constellations and ideas in the sky. Maybe, through hope, resilience, and empathy, the future can be filled with constellations representing love for all living things.