Delmarva Review: Love of Learning by Esther Lim Palmer

Author’s Note: “To spend more time with my seven-year-old daughter, I started learning the piano with her. This process of learning filled me with childlike joy and prompted ‘Love of Learning.’” 

Love of Learning

Here I am,
at thirty-nine, learning
to read
again. 

Line by line,
black and white lights
fill spaces with music
in my mind. 

It takes time
to learn a new lexicon:

Adagio, slowly.

Legato, I am walking.

Staccato, I am jumping
in puddles
again. 

⧫

Esther Lim Palmer is the author of two chapbooks, Stellar (Finishing Line Press, 2021) and Janus (Finishing Line Press, 2020). Her work has appeared in California Quarterly, Plainsongs, White Wall Review, Poetry in the Time of Coronavirus (Volume 2), The Hungry Chimera, Brief Wilderness, and Oberon’s Seventeenth Annual Issue—selected to be archived in EBSCO’s Humanities’ database for universities and cultural entities interested in contemporary literary work. 

Delmarva Review publishes compelling poetry, fiction, and nonfiction selected from thousands of submissions annually. Designed to encourage outstanding new writing, the literary journal is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Financial support comes from tax-deductible contributions and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org