Monday, May 15, 2017

Whatever Winter Did to Us

Jacaranda tree, no filter
Los Angeles, CA 2017


Instructions on Not Giving Up

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.

Ada Limon

3 comments:

  1. Stunning photo. Stunning poem.

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  2. Love this. I am going to print it out and add it to my collection of quotes and poems.

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  3. Beautiful. They're both so appropriate for these times. The act of looking up, not down, I have to remind myself often, thank you and Ada for the reminder.

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