Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor's
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it's the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world's baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living despite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I'll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I'll take it all.
by Ada Limón. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 15, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.
Invitation: “...it's the greening of the trees…”
About this Poem
"It was a hard winter. My whole body raged against it. But right as the world feels uninhabitable, something miraculous happens: the trees come back. I wanted to praise that ordinary thing as a way of bringing myself back too." -Ada Limón
More on the work of Ada Limón in an On Being Episode and her life at this link.
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"It's the greening of the trees that gets to me" offers Ada Limon. And: "Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty." On a recent drive by the Santa Fe River which runs through town, it was the bright green of the trees near the river that caught my eye. There seemed to be a hopefulness in this sight, much like what Ada Limon declares -- "It's the greening of the trees that gets to me."